


Impulse Decisions

by listerinezero



Series: Impulse Decisions [1]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - With Powers, Cancer, Fake Marriage, Fluff, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, M/M, New York City, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:42:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 40,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/listerinezero/pseuds/listerinezero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik wakes up in Las Vegas with a hell of a hangover, a telepath in his bed, and a ring on his finger. Now what?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was dark when Erik woke up, and it took him a few minutes to realize that was because his eyes were still closed. That was probably for the best, though: it felt like his brain might try to make an escape through his eye sockets. Best to take it slow, he thought, and cracked open one eye.

“Guh!” he groaned, and shut it again. Bright. Too bright. Best to keep them shut. No, there was no way he was opening his eyes or moving his head or getting up any time soon. Definitely not. He was going to stay right here.

Where was he?

“The Mirage,” said a voice.

Erik turned and peeked again and found a body in bed next to him. He yelped and, in trying to roll away from the man's bare back, got himself tangled in the blankets and ended up crashing head first onto the floor.

“What? You're a mirage?” he groaned, and in disentagling himself from the hotel sheets, found that he was naked.

“No, I'm a telepath. We're at The Mirage in Las Vegas,” said the voice from the bed, “And please stop shouting. I think my brain might begin to froth.”

Had he been shouting? Erik couldn't remember speaking at all. He wasn't sure if he remembered how to at this point.

“In your mind. You're shouting in your mind.”

Shouting in his mind? What did that even mean? Was that English? His mother always said that if he drank too much he'd lose brain cells, but –

“Please stop thinking. Just stop thinking full stop.”

Erik stood slowly and wrapped the white bed sheet around himself like a toga. Whoever this man was, this telepath, he was laying face down on top of the bed as still as a plank. Erik tried to take a peek to see who it was – maybe someone from the conference, or heaven forbid one of his colleagues – but the side of his face that wasn't smashed into the pillow was obscured by thick chestnut hair. The only identifying feature Erik could get a decent view of was the man's bare ass, exposed after Erik pulled the blankets off with his fall. As far as identifying features went, this was a pretty great one. Erik would remember an ass like that.

Erik was remembering an ass like that.

He looked around the room, and condoms. Oh, there were condoms. Erik counted five – no, six – strewn around the hotel suite. A couple of them looked like they'd been tossed away unused. They were probably too drunk to get them on properly.

The telepath started to stir: groaned and stretched, but still kept his face in the pillow. He would be up soon. Erik realized he should probably make himself decent.

He went to the mirror and started at what he saw: red marks all over his neck and shoulders, hair pointing every which way, dark circles under his eyes, and a cut above his eyebrow. The hair, at least, he could do something about, so he raised his hands to comb it with his fingers. Odd: he was wearing a ring. He didn't wear rings, or any jewelry, really. He wondered if he stole it. Or made it.

Oh. It was coming back.

“I can't believe we did that. Oh, this is embarrassing,” said the man in the bed. Erik turned around and found him sitting up against the purple headboard, face now in his hands, rubbing at his eyes. The front was nearly as good as the back.

“Did we... did we get married?” Erik asked.

The man dropped his hands and Erik finally got a look at his face. Beautiful. Oh, God, he was beautiful. Full soft lips and big blue eyes. An elegant face, absolutely perfect. It should be put on a coin. Erik knew that, in theory, he should be freaking out about everything that was happening, but he had to take a minute to appreciate his dumb fucking luck of waking up in this guy's bed.

The telepath smiled and rubbed at his temples. “Just because it's complimentary doesn't mean you're not still shouting.”

“Right. Sorry. Did we...? Really?”

He held up his hand and showed off a ring similar to Erik's. “I'm afraid so.” He wrapped a blanket around his waist and stood from the bed. Erik noticed that he was a fair bit shorter than him. No surprise there: Erik always had a thing for short men.

The telepath shot him a look. He must have overheard that. Erik blushed.

“And my name is Charles,” he said, “Please stop referring to me as 'the telepath.' I feel like I'm in a nature documentary and you're observing my habitat.”

Erik smiled. “Is this your habitat?”

“Condom-strewn Vegas hotel rooms with handsome mutant lovers? Unfortunately, no. I'm quite far from my natural habitat.”

Erik finally peeled his eyes off of Charles and looked back down at the ring on his hand. He remembered making it at the chapel last night out of Azazel's Zippo. When the justice of the peace (and oh, his mother would be upset that it wasn't a rabbi) had asked him for the rings, he improvised. He remembered the way Charles looked at him when he'd done it, peering up at him with pride and drunken wonder and slurring, “You brilliant man! You amazing, beautiful, brilliant man!” And Erik had taken Charles' face in his hands and kissed him ferociously, only pausing to say “I do.”

“Look,” Charles said, “It's not as if we got tattoos or anything. We haven't done anything that can't be undone.”

“Are you sure we didn't get tattoos?”

Charles' smile turned cheeky. “I cant tell with that sheet draped over you.” He shook his head. “I'm sorry. That was inappropriate.”

“Inappropriate?” Erik chuckled, “I think we passed inappropriate a long time ago.” Still, he shifted a bit uncomfortably in his toga, feeling more than a bit exposed in front of a stranger. “I'm pretty sure it would hurt if I'd gotten a tattoo, and nothing hurts, so I think we're okay. Well, a few bruises from where I fell out of bed, but that's it.”

Charles blushed and looked away, looked anywhere but at Erik. His blushing bride. Blushing _husband._ Oh, god, it was starting to sink in. He'd gotten married. To a stranger. This guy was his husband.

“What do we do now?” Erik asked.

“Let's just take this one step at a time. I'm not quite ready to think too deeply about much of anything just yet, so would you mind if we held off on making any other major life decisions until after we've had a shower and some breakfast?” Charles caught himself and added, “Two showers. One for each of us. You are certainly not required to shower with me. I mean, unless you want to.”

Erik didn't think showering with Charles sounded all that terrible, but despite having just married the man and apparently fucked him six ways to Sunday the night before, at the moment jumping in the shower with him seemed awfully forward. Instead, he just offered to let Charles have the first shower and attempted to locate his underwear.

He found his clothes piled up in the corner, his phone still in his pants pocket. The first thing he noticed upon turning it on was that he'd apparently changed the background to a picture of him and Charles. Further investigation found that he'd taken no less than nine pictures of a penis – not his own – one of which he'd sent to Emma with the caption “LOOK AT MY HUSBAND'S DICK IT'S PERFECT I LOVE HIM.”

Clearly, pretending this wedding didn't happen was not going to be an option.

Charles stepped out of the shower a few minutes later with a fluffy white towel wrapped around his waist. His face was flushed. His hair curled in wet tendrils at the nape of his neck, water still dripping from the ends and down over his sculpted white shoulders.

“All yours,” Charles said, and for a quick moment, Erik fantasized that he wasn't referring to the bathroom.

He wondered if Charles would know that he was beating off to him under the shower spray. He wondered if Charles had done the same.


	2. Chapter 2

Eventually they made their way to a cafe on the main level of The Mirage. Charles had offered to pay for room service so that they could hash things out in private and spare their hangovers the sounds of the casino floor, but in the end, Erik really wanted to get out of that room. The air was thick and the place had started to smell, and every piece of furniture was conjuring images from the previous night. He couldn't think clearly while trapped in that little room with Charles, and even the recycled casino air would be a relief from the charged atmosphere in their suite.

Charles put the overpriced breakfast on his room account, despite Erik's protest that he could pay for his own bagel and coffee. “Nonsense,” Charles said, “It will be comped anyway.”

He must gamble a lot, Erik thought. Or at least he must win.

They took a table in the corner, as far from the crowds as possible. It didn't feel strange, Erik realized, to be sitting there with Charles. He didn't feel like he was dining with a stranger. His hangover amnesia was beginning to fade, and puzzle pieces started to fit into place. The freckles on Charles' nose: he must have spent an hour staring at them last night. He remembered standing in front of the fountains at the Bellagio, Charles entranced by the display, Erik entranced by Charles. He found himself staring again, and felt completely comfortable doing so. The easy chemistry, the immediate, dizzying attraction - he was remembering why this all seemed like a good idea (after a couple hundred tequila shots).

“What brings you to Las Vegas?” Charles asked him as he discarded his tea bag. “I'm sure you told me last night, but I'm afraid I can't remember.”

“I'm here for an engineering conference at the MGM Grand.”

“Right! Right, you were telling me about that. You said that you'd attended a presentation on the application of optoelectronics? Is that right?”

Erik smiled, pleased. “Yes, I did. I went to a few, but that one was really impressive. Do you know much about optical engineering?”

“Not really, no. Did you present?”

“No, not this year.” Erik slurped at his coffee. “What about you? What did you say you were here for?”

“Just a weekend away with a couple of friends. I got a promotion at work, so I thought I'd treat to a little celebration.”

“Well, congratulations. What sort of work do you do?”

“I am now lead barista in charge of the pastry case.”

Erik's face fell. “You're joking.”

“Nope.”

Erik wasn't quite sure what to say. Several awfully rude options came to mind, among them: “How can you afford to take your friends to Vegas for a weekend on a barista's pay?” and “I've known you less than twenty-four hours and I know you're too smart for a job like that,” and, “Aren't you a little old to be frothing milk for a living?” and worst of all, “If you married me for my money, you're shit out of luck, pal.”

What he settled on was, “You know, if you're interested in engineering, I could put in word for you somewhere. You may need to go back to school, but I'm sure you could get your foot in the door.”

Charles smiled. “I actually have a Ph. D. in genetics, but thank you for the offer.” Erik was dumbfounded. “I'm taking a bit of a break from it right now. It's a friend's cafe. I asked her to hire me during my sabbatical so that I don't get stir crazy sitting at home under a stack of text books.”

“Ah. We talked about this already, didn't we?”

Charles smirked into his tea. They had.

“Speaking of home,” Erik continued, ignoring Charles' smug expression, “When do you go back to England?”

Charles' expression turned smugger, but somehow Erik found it endearing. “I fly back to New York tomorrow morning. I'll probably go back to England for the next wedding or funeral I can't avoid.”

“Oh, good, you live in New York. So do I.” Erik didn't mean to sound so relieved or enthusiastic – relieved and enthusiastic were not emotions he was all too familiar with – but the words were out before he could stop them. Charles seemed amused at his outburst. “We talked about that already, too, didn't we?”

“Yes, we did.”

“Of course we did.” The conversation came back to him. They'd wandered around the casino floor in New York New York, laughing at the embarrassingly cartoonish representation of the city, dumbfounded at the Sex and the City slot machines, annoyed at how the show made it seem like everyone in Manhattan was wealthy, white, and human. Not that either of them would admit to ever having watched an episode. Then they had a couple of shots at the bar and made out in a corner behind the nickel slots.

Erik was enjoying the memory, enjoying his breakfast, enjoying his company, enjoying the most bizarrely pleasurable predicament he'd ever been in and looking forward to finding out what came next, but Charles seemed nervous. He was fidgeting and frowning and he refused to look Erik in the eye.

“Listen, Erik,” Charles said, and rubbed at his forehead, “I really have to apologize for this. For last night, I mean. I'm sorry to have put you through this, and I promise you I will take responsibility and fix it. It will be like it never happened, okay?”

Erik's brain stuttered to a stop. “What?”

Fix it, he'd said. Undo it.

Right. Of course. Charles wanted out.

Erik tried to rise above his boiling embarrassment at being stupid enough to hope that this would be more than a one-night stand. He tried to appear casual, he really did, but he felt like he’d been pushed off a cliff, and he had a feeling that Charles could hear the way his heart was pounding. The easy chuckle he attempted came out strangled.

“'Put me through this'? You make it sound like you've tortured me.” Erik could think of worse things in life than being married to Charles, he didn't say.

Charles shook his head. “I don't think there is any scenario where getting drunk and eloping with a strange man isn't a colossally stupid and embarrassing idea.”

“Right.” Erik was still going for aloof, but the act was getting thinner and thinner with each passing moment. Why was this bothering him so much? He'd only known Charles a day. He would go back home and his life would be exactly the same as it was before. He just wasn’t expecting… well, he wasn’t expecting outright rejection over breakfast. He looked down and noticed that he'd torn his napkin to shreds. “No, of course, this was stupid.” Of course it was. Too good to be true. Too good to be true for him. “I don't even know your last name.”

“Xavier.”

He'd been stupid to get his hopes up. He'd been stupid to enjoy his good fortune. He'd been stupid to wake up and expect anything but heartbreak and humiliation out of this.

Charles looked as though he could see the way Erik's mind was turning, and maybe he did. He seemed genuinely contrite when he said, “I'm really, truly sorry to have done this to you. I'll speak to my lawyer on Monday and straighten this all out. We will take care of this as quickly and easily as possible, no harm done. Quick and painless.”

“Why wait? I'm sure there must be some place we could get a drive-through annulment off the strip.” He said that with more bite than he'd meant to.

Charles smiled sweetly, the bastard. “I'll speak to my lawyer on Monday. I would much rather work with her.” He pulled out his phone. “I'll need your phone number to reach you in New York. Can you call my phone?”

Charles recited his phone number and when Erik dialed it, he found it programmed in his phone as “Hubby.” He frowned and turned the screen to Charles. “Was this your doing? I would never use a word like ‘hubby.’”

“Probably,” Charles admitted, and turned his own phone to Erik. It said that “Soulmate” was calling him.

Embarrassing. Stupid and embarrassing. He was too old to be feeling this way.

They finished their breakfast in silence, despite Charles' weak attempts at small talk. Erik was too angry for small talk. Some quiet voice in his mind was trying to convince him to take the high road and be mature about this, but fuck that. He sat and seethed and chomped on his bagel and sucked down his coffee and quietly cursed Charles for toying with him like this. He was not to be toyed with. Who did this guy think he was? Did Charles think he could just step into people’s lives and play with them for his own amusement, consequences be damned? Just manipulate them and take what he wanted and -

“You're shouting again,” Charles said.

Erik ignored him, and he didn't speak again until they stood to leave.

“I should get back to the conference,” he lied. He hadn't planned on attending any of the day’s events, but it was an easy excuse and a good distraction until he could get the fuck out of Las Vegas and forget he’d ever met Charles at all.

“I'll walk with you as far as the Bellagio. My friend texted me and said that she's still there. She's on a bit of a winning streak, apparently.”

The offer made Erik's skin crawl. “I'm walking on the other side of the street.”

“Then I'll walk you to the corner,” Charles said.

Erik rolled his eyes, but allowed it. They left the Mirage out the front door and as soon as they stepped into the sunlight, Charles whipped out a pair of sunglasses. They were designer, Erik noticed, and incongruously fashionable compared to the rest of his outfit. It annoyed him that Charles was trying to be cute in the desert. He was English. He shouldn't be allowed out in the sun.

“I know you don't believe me,” Charles said, “but I really am sorry about all this. I wish... I wish this could have turned out differently.” And as calm and dignified as he was trying to be, Charles did have a look of regret on his face when he pulled the Zippo ring off his finger and handed it back to Erik.

Erik stuffed it in his pocket, not even noticing that he still was still wearing his.

“I'll call you on Monday or Tuesday, after I speak to my lawyer. We'll get this all straightened out, I promise.”

“Fine.”

“And then, maybe, I hope we can get together sometime. Maybe we can have a drink next week.”

Fat chance.

 

*

 

Erik left Charles at the corner and took his time walking down the strip, through the lobby of the MGM Grand to the far elevators, down the mile-long hallway to his room.

When he walked in, Azazel pelted him with a fistful of white rice. “Mazel tov.”

“Very funny.”

“How's your husband?”

Erik did not feel like talking to Azazel (about anything, ever), so he just glared at him and grunted, “He's hung over. And so am I. Now leave me alone so I can take a nap.”

“Are you going down to the conference?”

“Maybe later.”

Azazel nodded and left, and as soon as he was gone, Erik pulled out his phone and deleted all of those dick shots. He didn't have it in him yet to delete the pictures of Charles' face.

 

*

 

The trouble with traveling with Azazel was that, as a teleporter, he always insisted on them leaving at the last possible second. Erik spent most of the following morning pestering him to get a move on, but Azazel refused to get up from the craps table. They finally disappeared out of the casino and into the security checkpoint at McCarran less than twenty minutes before their flight, and then from the other side of security to the gate with only seconds to spare. Even with a teleporter in tow, Erik still ended up running down the jetway to stop the flight attendants from shutting the door and taking off without them.

He was mumbling an insincere apology to the frowning flight attendant when he heard his name, turned, and saw Charles sitting in a window seat in first class. Because that was just his fucking luck.

Erik tried to walk past him with only a nod hello, but the brunette sitting next to him stood and blocked his path. “Oh, do you two know each other? Here, take my seat. I don’t mind.” Charles tried to protest, but she ignored him and pushed Erik into the oversized seat.

“That’s really not necessary,” Erik said, “Besides, I’m in coach. I’m sure you would rather sit here.”

“Not at all,” said the brunette, and she snatched his boarding pass out of his hand and headed down the aisle before he could stop her.

A flight attended took his bag from him and shoved it into an overhead a few rows down. “Please sit, sir, we’re already running late.”

Erik looked around for another option, but found none, so he sat down next to Charles. Azazel leaned in and offered Charles his congratulations as he passed. Erik told him to fuck off.

So he was going to have to spend the next five hours buckled next to Charles. Frankly, he would rather fly with Pol Pot, and Erik considered telling Charles so, but before he could, Charles turned and said, “I’m sorry, that was my friend, Moira.”

“Yeah, well, joke’s on her, because now she has to sit with Azazel.”

Charles laughed. “She won almost $900 at the poker tables, so I don’t think too much is going to bother her right now.”

“Good, at least someone enjoyed this weekend.”

Charles didn’t say anything to that.

Erik noticed then that the young man in horn-rimmed glasses on the other side of the aisle was staring at him. “What?” he snapped, and the man looked away.

 

*

 

After takeoff, Erik pulled out a paperback. Charles pulled out an iPad and asked, “Would you like to play a game? We could play chess.”

“No, thank you.”

“Are we just going to sit here in silence?”

“What makes you think I like to talk to people on public transportation?”

Erik then remembered the two of them riding the Las Vegas monorail after their wedding, remembered turning to anyone who would listen and slurring, “Hi, have you met Charles? This is my husband, Charles.”

“Fine, I’ll play chess,” he said, and put away his mutant spy novel. Charles seemed happy, and Erik hated that he was glad to see it.

They were only a few moves in when Erik realized that Charles was actually quite a good chess player and told him so. “I’ll bet you were on the chess team in high school,” he said.

Charles arched an eyebrow. “Takes one to know one.”

Erik smiled. “Guilty. I used to love chess, but I don’t get to play much anymore.” That was the only reason why he agreed to play with Charles, he told himself. It certainly wasn’t because he still enjoyed Charles’ company, or because he liked the way Charles stroked at his chin when deciding on a move, or because of the adorably scandalized face Charles made every time Erik took one of his pieces. He agreed to the game because he missed playing chess. That was all.

When the game was over (Erik won, but it was close), Erik went back to reading and Charles leaned his seat back and took a nap. Erik absolutely did not smile to himself every time Charles mumbled nonsense in his sleep.

 

*

 

It was early evening by the time they landed at JFK, and rush hour was in full swing.

“I have a car waiting for us,” Charles said as they made their way through the terminal, “I’d be happy to give you a ride back into the city.”

“No, thanks,” Erik said. “I was just going to take the subway.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re more than welcome to ride with us.” Charles probably thought that Erik was refusing the offer on principle. That wasn’t it at all.

“I don’t live in the city. I live in Queens. It will be faster if I just go myself. Don’t worry about it.”

Charles looked surprised. Mr. Designer Shades, Mr. Mirage Suite, Mr. First Class. Of course he did. Erik should have hated him for it, but he didn’t. He wasn’t even all that angry anymore. Maybe flying together wasn’t a disaster after all: at least he was going home disappointed now instead of furious. Nothing like some high altitude snoring to soften the blow of rejection.

“All right, well, then I’ll call you in a day or two,” Charles said.

“Okay.”

Charles’ friends were watching, so they hugged, awkward as it was, and said their goodbyes. 

And that was that.

 

*

 

AIRTRAN to the J train to 121st Street, then four blocks to walk. It would have been some consolation to his ego if he was going home to a swanky apartment in a trendy neighborhood, but after the weekend he’d had, Erik was secretly relieved to return to his childhood home in Kew Gardens. As much as it pained him to admit it, the dumpy old studio in Tribeca that he’d given up a year and a half earlier had been anything but comforting.

The house was quiet when Erik walked in. The only sound came from the cat, whose collar bell jingled as she ran in to greet him. He dumped his suitcase next to the door, pet the cat, and grabbed the stack of mail that had been accumulating on the hall table for the past couple of days: two bills from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, a bill from the emergency room visit to Jamaica Hospital, a statement from Blue Cross Blue Shield, gas bill, electric bill, student loan bill, and a letter from Cornell asking for alumni donations.

“Erik? Is that you?” his mom called out.

“Yeah. I’m home.”

She shuffled into the living room, moving slowly but wearing a big grin on her face. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“It was quiet. I thought you might be sleeping.”

She tightened her robe and adjusted the scarf she’d wrapped around her nearly bald head. “Welcome home, bubala,” she said, and pulled him down to kiss his cheek. In her youth she’d been robust and tall, almost as tall as Erik, but somehow in the last couple of years it seemed like she'd shrunk. “How was Vegas? Did you win?”

“Not even close.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, honey.” She patted his shoulder. “What did I tell you? You should only gamble if you’re going to win.”

“That’s not how gambling works, Ma.”

“What about me? How did I do?” She’d given him a ten dollar bill for the roulette wheel. Erik pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket. “I won? Did I win?” She was giddy as he counted out the bills. “Number sixteen?”

“Sixty bucks.”

She let out a small cheer. “You see? I told you. Only gamble if you’re going to win.”

“I’ll remember that for next time,” Erik said and slumped into the couch. “What did you do this weekend?”

“Oh, it was very exciting around here. I walked all the way to the movie theater and back.”

“I guess you’re feeling better, then?”

She walked over to where he was sitting and took his face in her hands. “Are you all right?” she peered into his eyes and stroked his cheekbone with her thumb. “You seem upset.”

“I’m fine.”

“Did you lose a lot of money?”

“No, I just had a shitty weekend.”

She raked her fingers through his hair, pushed it back and away from his face. “Your hair is thinning,” she said.

“I know that. It’s from stress. And if you keep pulling on it you’re only going to make it worse.”

She let go of his hair, but still stood there peering at him, a question on her face that he refused to answer.

“I’m fine,” he said again.

“Okay, if you say so.” She kissed his receding hairline. “I think I’m going to take my winnings and order Chinese food. How does that sound?”

“Sounds good,” he said, put his feet up, and turned on the TV.


	3. Chapter 3

Erik went into work at 9:00 on Monday morning and pretended like nothing happened. That lasted until 9:08, when Emma Frost marched into his office, shut the door behind her, and perched herself on his desk. She crossed her arms over her chest and waited.

Erik said nothing. He'd never won a staring contest with Emma before, but damned if he wasn't going to try. She cocked her head and arched her eyebrows and glared at him, but still he said nothing. He tried to ignore her and focus on his computer screen, but she turned it away from him.

When that still didn't work, she went for a direct attack. _I can just go in and find it myself_ , she said into his mind, and he caved.

“Fine,” he said. “What?”

“What do you mean 'what'?” She pulled out her phone and showed him the dick shot and the all-caps caption. “Would you care to explain why I woke up on Saturday morning and found this on my phone?”

“Well, I know you like to think of yourself as a connoisseur of cock, so I thought you might be interested in seeing that one.”

She grabbed a legal pad off his desk and smacked him in the shoulder with it. “Cut the crap. Who's the guy?”

“It's no one. It's just a guy I met at the conference. We got a little drunk and I took some pictures. I shouldn't have sent it to you.”

“You said he was your husband and you loved him. The last time you sent me a cock shot you just give me a letter grade, and that was at least a year ago. You're going to have to tell me more.” When Erik became evasive, she broke into a grin. “Don't tell me you really married the guy.” Erik frowned and looked away, and Emma gave a startled laugh. “What are you, Britney Spears?”

“Oh, just shut up, okay? It's already over. He's going to call me to sign the annulment today. We got a little carried away, I saw an advertisement for a chapel, I asked him if he... anyway, it doesn't matter, because by Wednesday it will be like it never happened. So go ahead and tease now, but when the ink is dry, we never speak of this again, you got it?”

“Who else knows?”

“Azazel was there.”

“Was he your best man?” she smirked.

Erik glared at her. “He was the witness.”

“Well, he obviously gave the union his blessing.”

“No, he's an evil man who likes to watch me do stupid things and fuck up my life.”

When Emma smiled again, it was affectionate rather than teasing. “Does your husband live in New York? Are you going to see him again?”

“He does, and if I never see him again it will be too soon.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “I'm sure he's just as embarrassed as you are. You obviously like him. Why don't you -”

“It's over,” he interrupted. “Trust me.”

Emma didn't argue. She pushed herself off of Erik's desk and smoothed the creases on her fitted white pencil skirt. “Fine,” she said as she went for the door, “But with the year you've had, you shouldn't be so quick to give up on B+ cock.”

Erik threw a pen at her as she left. “That was a solid A and you know it,” he called after her, but she sauntered back to marketing without so much as a glance over her shoulder.

With Emma gone, Erik turned his computer monitor back towards him and opened up the file he'd been working on. Then, deciding he wasn't fooling anyone and no one had to know anyway, he opened up his browser and searched “Charles Xavier.”

He found Charles' faculty page at Columbia first, although it hadn't been updated in two semesters. He found a few references to Charles' genetics research, some published articles, and references to his thesis. He was quoted in a couple of news articles: one pertaining to mutant evolution research and another about telepathy. He was also credited as one of five co-authors on a popular Intro to Psionics textbook.

More interesting were the references he found to Charles' family. The name “Charles Xavier” turned up the obituary for one Brian Xavier: Charles' father, died twenty-one years earlier, which meant that Charles was just a kid when he died. So they had that in common at least, Erik thought.

That led to a search of “Xavier Enterprises,” which brought up some very interesting articles on CNNMoney and Bloomberg, and a profile of his mother in Forbes. The word “billion” seemed to be tossed around quite a bit, and Erik realized had his answer. That was why Charles was so quick to annul. He probably had a lot to lose in a divorce.

At least that meant it wasn't personal. Charles hadn't been repulsed by him, he was just a greedy, privileged little shit. He would have annulled it no matter who he'd gotten drunk and married. It was a relief, actually, and finally Erik was able to put Charles out of his mind for the first time since they met. He returned to his work, and didn't think about Charles again until his phone rang later that afternoon.

The display still said “Hubby.”

“Hi, Erik?” Charles said when answered, “This is Charles. Xavier. Your... ah. We met in Las Vegas?”

“I know who you are, Charles.”

“Right. Of course. I spoke to my lawyer this morning and I was hoping we could meet in person to discuss our... options.”

Erik mulled that over. Not one word of that sentence sounded good to him. He was curious as to why Charles waited so long to call him if he spoke to his lawyer that morning. He also wondered what kind of scam Charles meant by the word “options.” Most of all, though, Erik absolutely did not want to meet Charles in person.

“Look,” he said, “Just send the annulment papers over here and I'll sign them. I'll give you my fax number. Send a bike messenger or something if you want. Let's just get this over and done with, okay?”

“It might not be that simple, and if you don't mind, I would really rather discuss this in person. I would be happy to meet you by your office. Why don't we get dinner? My treat. I'm afraid I don't know too many restaurants in midtown, but there must be someplace we could go. There's an Italian place a few blocks from your office that's not bad, but I'm sure whatever you choose would be fine.”

“How do you know where my office is?”

Charles paused before he admitted, “I Googled you.”

“You Googled me?” Erik asked, feigning disgust, “Why would you do that?”

“Just curious.” He paused again. “So, can you meet me tonight?”

Feeling he just gained the upper hand, Erik smiled, and gave Charles a time and place.

 

*

 

Erik debated between telling Charles to meet him at the pizza parlor down the street (where they would be in and out in fifteen minutes, max) and making the most out of Charles' offer to treat. He didn't mind the idea of getting a decent meal out of this whole ordeal. After all, he couldn't cook for shit, and the best thing his mother ever made was reservations. He ended up compromising and telling Charles to meet him at Cioffi's, a gourmet deli five blocks from his office. It had the best sandwiches in the area and no seating. Perfect compromise.

Of course, the plan backfired. When Charles arrived (looking better than Erik remembered, damn him) he was overwhelmed by the extensive menu and distracted by the imported sauces and olive oils and sardines and cheeses on display. They ended up browsing for almost twenty minutes before they even placed their order. Erik even found himself enjoying his company. Charles asked after Azazel, and Erik asked Charles what Moira was doing with her new-found wealth. Then when they got their food and Charles noticed that there were no tables, he insisted they walk over to Rockefeller Center and find a bench. They wandered down 6th Ave, talking about the weather and different buildings they passed along the way, which restaurants were terrible and who they knew in the neighborhood. It was... pleasant. Surprisingly pleasant.

“I can't believe the ice skating rink is still up,” Charles said as they sat down. “Winter's almost over. Isn't it too warm?”

“It's open until April, I think. I don't get the appeal of ice skating in a t-shirt, but I guess the tourists don't care.” He took a bite of his sandwich. “Now, do you want to explain to me why this has turned into a-” he looked at his watch “- hour long event instead of a two-second signature?”

Charles looked like he'd been caught. “Right. I'm sorry, I guess I'm dawdling.” He dawdled still. He hesitated, frowned at his sandwich. He seemed nervous. “Well, like I told you on the phone, I was able to see my lawyer this morning, and she drew up the papers for an annulment. I have them right here.” He nodded to the bag at his side. “But I was talking to her, and some other options presented themselves.”

“What do you mean, 'options'?”

“We might be able to find a way that we can both benefit from this little... incident.”

Erik was becoming frustrated with Charles' euphemisms, but his tone was still light when he asked, “Would you please just say whatever it is you're trying to say?”

“Look, we can have this marriage annulled this week and walk away as if this never happened, or we can stay married, and a year or two from now we can get divorced and you can walk away with a nice settlement.”

Erik couldn't hide his surprise. “What? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?”

“What purpose?”

“The purpose of killing this thing before I can make off with your money.”

Charles looked wounded. “What? Is that what you thought?”

Erik shrugged and said by way of an apology, “It seemed like a plausible explanation.” He didn't know why he felt guilty for saying it, and he didn't know why Charles looked so hurt by the accusation. It was a logical answer. He shouldn't have felt bad for making the assumption. Still, Charles appeared to be insulted that Erik thought he'd rejected him over money.

Now Erik was insulted: if it wasn't about money, then Charles really did just dump him, plain and simple. All of the hurt and embarrassment that he'd managed to put aside while they laughed and chatted for the past hour came flooding back to him. Charles must have seen Erik stiffen, but he made no apology. He just pressed on.

“My grandmother,” Charles began, “was a rotten old woman who hated everyone and took great pleasure in letting them know it. When she died ten years ago, I was told that she’d cut me out of her will because I was gay. Today I found out that was only partly true. She stipulated that I would receive my share of the inheritance on my first wedding anniversary.” Charles drummed his fingers on his knee. “Of course, like I said, this was ten years ago. I’m sure she never imagined that two men would be able to marry legally only a few years later.”

“So, what, then? We don't sign the papers and a year from now you cut me a check? That's it?”

“It's not that simple. It will have to look like we've really been married.” Erik's eyebrows shot skyward as he listened to Charles' proposition. “If my family figures out it's a ruse, I'm sure they'll block the transaction and accuse me of fraud. You don't have to pretend you're in love with me, or even that you like me all that much, but it just has to be enough to stop any of my family investigating it too deeply. As long as no one questions that we live together and you're willing to play along at any family functions that may crop up – and believe me I'm already quite good at avoiding family functions – we should be able to walk away from this with a few more dollars in the bank.”

“How many more dollars in the bank?” Erik asked.

“The inheritance is somewhere in the neighborhood of $21 million.” Charles waited for Erik to say something, but nothing came out. “I would split it evenly with you, I promise you that.”

“You're offering me $10.5 million to live with you for a year?”

“I have a two-bedroom apartment on the West Side. The second bedroom is completely furnished. You don't have to move anything besides your clothes and whatever other personal items you might want. It's an easy commute down to the area where your office is, so that shouldn't be a problem. It's definitely closer than Queens. I won't ask you to pay rent or anything like that. In fact, I'll even help to cover the rent on your apartment during the time you're with me. You don't even have to stay in my place every night if you don't want to. Mostly I just need to know that, if asked, the doorman and my neighbors will be able to say that you live there, that they see you coming and going regularly. Maybe we go out to dinner together sometimes. But we can do that, can't we? We're doing it pretty well right now.”

Erik's mind was still swimming in dollar signs.

“It doesn't have to be awkward. We've been getting along well so far today. And the flight was nice. We could play chess. We could be roommates. And it seems like you're pretty successful, I mean, I'm not trying to suggest that you're destitute or anything like that, but I can't imagine anyone not wanting ten million dollars. You could buy a house. Or a car. A fleet of cars.”

A few rounds of chemotherapy. Surgery. Experimental treatments. All of the other expenses that came with supporting his mother through her illness. He could almost taste it: no more debt.

“Why, though?” Erik finally spoke. “You're not exactly destitute yourself. Why do you need the money so badly that you can't wait until you actually get married for real some day? What is it, drugs? Gambling debts?”

Charles' face, so open and hopeful a minute earlier, shuttered closed. “No, no. Nothing like that. And yes, I have more than enough to get by, that's true, but I don't exactly have ten million dollars sitting in my checking account. This would be a lump sum. A lump sum that I could really use.”

“And what makes you so sure that, when we do divorce, that I won't get myself a lawyer and take you for everything you've got?”

“I guess I don't.”

“You're willing to gamble everything in the hopes of that $10.5 million? And how do I know you're not going to play me and keep the whole $21 million for yourself?”

“I guess you don't. But it's worth a shot, isn't it?”

Erik thought that over. “You woke up and dumped me as soon as the caffeine hit your system. And now you're asking me to spend the next year pretending to be your husband?”

Charles looked hurt. Again. “I didn't... I'm sorry, I know that wasn't...” He frowned and looked away. Again, Erik found himself feeling like he'd hurt Charles' feelings, and he didn't understand why. There must have been something he was missing. “Please just consider my offer,” Charles almost begged. “Take a day and get back to me. Like I said, you don't have to put on a big show and act like you're in love with me, just play along and don't give anyone reason to think we're lying. Just think about it, okay?”

“I don't need to think about it. I'll do it.”

Charles lit up. “You will?”

“Yeah, I will. But how do I know you're not going to wake up, take one look at me, and change your mind? Again?”

Charles looked genuinely pained, and Erik didn't know what to make of it. He realized he should probably just ask Charles why he'd dumped him that morning, but Erik really wanted that money, and if he heard Charles tell him out loud that he had regretted their night together, Erik didn't think he could still go through with this.

“We can't write up any kind of agreement, if that's what you're getting at,” Charles said. “If anyone finds it, it would defeat the purpose. It would prove this was a sham. But I won't back out on this, I promise you that.” Charles hung his head. “I understand that you were insulted by the way I treated you that morning, and I can't blame you, but I don't see any reason why we can't make the most of this arrangement.” Charles swallowed a lump in his throat. “Just promise me that you won't spend the next year sulking and resenting me. If you're going to live in my apartment and hate me, then I don't think I can do it. If we're going to do this, then we will have to at least try to be friends. Please tell me that we can be friends and we can do this happily, because if you're going to carry this anger with you every time we talk, I don't think I can do it.”

Erik had never let go of a grudge in his life, but for $10.5 million, he was willing to make the attempt.

“Fine.” He forced a smile and put out his hand. “You're on.”

Charles shook Erik's hand with a relieved smile and returned to his sandwich. “When would you like to move in? You could move in on Saturday. I'll be home in the afternoon. Would you like to come by and see the place first?”

“Saturday would be fine.”

“Excellent.”

 

*

 

Erik didn't get home until almost 8:30pm, and his mother couldn't have been happier.

“Did you go out? Did you have a date?” she asked.

Even when he was a kid, Erik's mother would worry that he was antisocial, that he didn't have enough friends, that he didn't get out often enough. That worry only escalated as he got older, especially since he'd moved back home. He rarely left the house anymore, aside from work. Even if he didn't already feel guilty about leaving his mom home alone and sick, he didn't have the money to go out very often anyway. She was all too happy to have something other than her own health to worry about, so Erik's lack of social life became her number one concern.

“Where did you go? Who were you with?”

“I had dinner with a friend of mine, that's all. We got a couple of sandwiches and sat on a bench in Rockefeller Center.”

Erik took off his jacket and hung it in the hall closet. He paused there, rested his head against the wall and went over the lie he'd cooked up on the train.

“Ma, you're feeling better now, right?”

She shrugged. “I guess so. Why?”

“This friend of mine offered me a place in the city, over on the West Side near the park. It wouldn't even cost me anything. He's going to be out of town for about a year and he said I could stay there while he's gone. I told him I'd take it. I'm going to bring my stuff over there on Saturday.”

Her smile faltered, but she picked it back up again. “That's wonderful, honey. I think you should.”

“It would be closer to work, and you're done with chemo now, so,” he raked his fingers through his hair: a nervous tick he should have known his mother would recognize.

“Don't be like that. You're beating yourself up over this, aren't you? I think this is great.” Of course she would end up reassuring him. “I keep telling you, I tell you over and over again, I don't want you to put your life on hold for me, okay? You should be going out and meeting people and having sex and ice skating in the city.”

“We didn't go ice skating. I don't ice skate. And I told you, it wasn't a date, he was offering me his apartment.”

“Whatever.” She pulled him into a hug. “You have been so good to me, and I want you to be happy.”

Erik knew he shouldn't feel bad about this. He was doing it for her, after all, and the truth was he was looking forward to moving out of his mother's house again. He was too old to be lectured for leaving water glasses on the table and not making his bed in the morning. Still, she had no one else. The ladies from the synagogue came by to visit in the beginning, but as her cancer progressed, their visits became rarer and rarer. There was no other family: his father and sister were killed when he was eleven. She wasn't working anymore. She couldn't go out much. She was a social person (a trait he hadn't inherited), and for the last year, he'd been her only sorry excuse for company.

“Maybe I'll stay here on the weekends and there during the week when I have to commute.”

“No, no, no. You should be there on the weekends so you can go out with your friends.”

“Ma, I - “

“You'll come back here for dinner once a week, how's that? And you'll call.”

“Fine. And if you need me to take you to the doctor or anything, you'll tell me, right?”

“I promise.”

“Good.”

She didn't need to know about the marriage. It would only break her heart.


	4. Chapter 4

Charles told Moira that he and Erik had decided to give it a shot. He hated lying to Moira, but at least it was closer to the truth than what everyone else was going to hear: that he and Erik had been quietly dating for a few weeks, fell in love, and decided to completely bypass the spectacle of an Xavier wedding by eloping in Las Vegas. It was a believable enough story, since his family already accused him of flouting their good name and called him an ungrateful heir. To them, this seemed like something he would do (and honestly, it probably was something he would do). But Moira and Hank had been there. They knew the truth: that he’d first laid eyes on Erik over a roulette wheel at Caesar’s Palace. That he’d seen the way Erik smiled when he won, the way his whole face transformed and lit up brighter than any of the lights on the Vegas Strip, and had fallen for him then and there.

It was the only real gambling he saw Erik do, actually. Erik watched Charles play, blew on Charles’ dice for luck, cheered and kissed Charles on the cheek when he won, but did no more than play the occasional slot machine when the waitresses came by to earn himself another drink. When Charles encouraged him to play, Erik declined and said he didn’t have the spending money. “I saw you win $60 at the roulette table. Why don’t you play with that?” Charles asked, but still Erik declined, happy to drink and watch Charles lose his shirt at blackjack. Even when Charles tried to give him a few chips to play with, Erik only purred into his ear, “I’d rather watch you.” Erik was already pretty far gone by that point, Charles saw in hindsight.

Moira was thrilled when Charles told her that Erik had decided to give him another chance. “I told you he was crazy about you,” she said, “I don’t know why you didn’t want to give it a shot in the first place.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said, which was true enough.

He hated lying to Moira, making her think that he and Erik were really a couple, but there was no avoiding it. It would be too easy for the Xaviers to wave a couple thousand dollars under someone’s nose and get the truth. There was only one person he could trust, one person who couldn’t be bribed by his family to throw him under the bus if it came to that, the only person in the world who would want to stick it to the Xaviers as badly as he did: his nineteen-year-old half sister, Raven.

Charles wished that Raven was still in New York. This would all be so much more bearable if Raven was there at his side, but Raven had done the sensible thing and gotten the hell out as soon as she turned eighteen. She had moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA and had no intention of ever coming back to New York for more than a weekend. Charles missed her, but she seemed happy out there. The sunshine agreed with her, and she’d even found herself a nice niche working part time as an animator’s model at Disney's animation studios in Burbank. She’d started out playing Cinderella during the afternoon parades at Disneyland during her summer break, but the higher-ups at Disney quickly saw the value in having a shape shifter on the payroll – someone who could actually turn into Cinderella (or Snow White or Mary Poppins or Aladdin, Woody, or Buzz) – and put her to work acting out scenes for the animators’ reference. She seemed to get a kick out of it, and Charles was happy she had finally found a way to feel good about her mutation. All of his praise had fallen on deaf ears, but now that she had strangers falling all over themselves to tell her how great she was, it seemed to be getting through to her. He was happy for her, but still, he wished he could talk to her in person.

“You’re an idiot,” she said when he called and told her what he’d done.

“Yes, thank you for that. So, who are you today?” Charles asked.

“Today I get to be Tiana. They’re doing a sequel for The Princess and the Frog.” Raven paused. “I think she might be my new favorite. Tiana looks good on me. But tomorrow I have to be that creep Prince Naveen. Ugh. I don't care if he's a prince, she still could have done better than that slimeball.”

Charles smiled. Before Raven had left for California, it had been years since she’d found anything positive to say about being a shape shifter. Now she was actually getting some fun out of it. He’d tell her how proud he was, but she’d only roll her eyes and tell him to shut up.

“Don’t think you’re changing the subject, Charles,” she said.

Charles sighed, “Yes, fine, go on and finish telling me what an idiot I am.”

“You realize you just set yourself up to spend the next year or more pining after this guy.”

“Yes, I realize that.”

“This guy you’re obviously crazy over.”

“Yes.”

“Who you could have had anyway, might I remind you, if you hadn’t fucked it up. Like you always do.”

“It would have been wrong, Raven. What would you have had me do? Spend the rest of my life with this guy knowing he only married me because I used my telepathy to get him to do it? Knowing he wouldn’t have wanted to marry me at all if I hadn’t made up his mind for him?”

“Um, yes!” Raven yelled across the continent. “You like him, he likes you, why are you so hung up on a little detail like that?”

“Because it is exactly everyone’s worst fear when they meet a telepath, that I’m going to go into their mind and make them do things they wouldn’t normally do. And now he hates me, so there you go.”

“He hates you because you dumped him, you dumbass. He liked you, he probably still likes you, and you didn’t even tell him why.”

“I would rather he hate me for dumping him than for manipulating him telepathically without his consent.”

“No, what you mean is you’d rather spend a year married to a man who hates you as penance for making a little mistake when you could have just kept your mouth shut and enjoyed being with this guy. God, Charles, you’re such a martyr sometimes. You know, he might have even been understanding if you just talked to him about it.”

“No, he wouldn’t have. Trust me. I’ve apologized for telepathic slips before, and I’ve never once been forgiven. It doesn’t matter anyway. What’s done is done. I’ve already blown my chances with him, and now he’s moving in on Saturday. It will be fine. Really. We’ll be roommates for a year or so, and that will be it, and I’ll get the money from Grandma, and it will all work out in the end.”

Raven sighed. “You’re an idiot.”

“I know.”

 

*

 

The first words out of Charles' mouth when Erik arrived at his apartment on Saturday were, “Is that all?” He was referring to Erik's luggage. All he'd brought with him for the big move was a duffel bag, some dry cleaning, and his computer case.

“I'll be going back and forth a lot. I'll just bring stuff over gradually.”

“Oh,” said Charles. He considered asking Erik why he’d have to go back and forth to Queens, but decided it wasn’t any of his business to be interrogating Erik on his comings and goings. Not at this point, anyway, with Erik still standing in the hallway looking lost. “Here, let me help you with that,” he said, and took Erik’s dry cleaning.

He showed Erik to the second bedroom, which until that day had been Raven’s room, where she stayed when she needed a place to run away from their mother and cry for a while. Until she left for the west coast, she was there most weekends and throughout her breaks from school. Fortunately, Raven had never been a girl who liked a pink room, so he didn’t think Erik would object to any of the furnishings.

“The closet is small, but the dresser is empty,” Charles told him, “and there’s space under the bed if you need it.”

Erik had set the duffel bag down on the ground and was standing in front of the window, looking out at the view of the park. This was the first time he’d seen Erik in jeans, Charles thought as his eyes drifted towards Erik’s ass. He’d been business casual in Las Vegas, and in a suit after work on Monday. He’d probably be seeing Erik in jeans pretty often, he realized. Jeans… pajamas… a towel…

“This is some place,” Erik said, snapping Charles back to reality.

“Oh, thanks. Unfortunately, my family owns the building. I could never afford to live here otherwise.”

Erik arched his eyebrow at that and turned back to the window.

“I’ll show you the rest,” Charles said, and gave him a quick tour. There was the living room (which contained the only television in the place) and one bathroom for them to share. The kitchen was fully furnished, though Charles admitted he didn’t use it much, and the garbage chute was down the hall.

“As far as roommate stuff goes, I would ask that you keep the place relatively clean, but you don’t need to worry too much about it because there’s a cleaning service that comes twice a week. The one and only time my mother ever came to visit me here, she told me I was living like a farm animal and hired them without telling me. I’ve tried firing them a few times, but they keep coming back. She must pay them pretty well, and I guess management lets them in, so don’t be alarmed if you find the place invaded by ladies wielding dust mops on Mondays and Thursdays. I would also suggest that you don’t leave anything out that you don’t want them putting away somewhere. You may never find it again.”

Erik smirked and thanked him for the warning. It was a smirk, not a smile. Charles had seen Erik smirk a few times since that morning in Las Vegas, even a few closed-mouth smiles and half-hearted chuckles, but never that big, beaming grin that had swept him off his feet that first night. Charles wondered if he would ever see it again.

Charles continued. “I think I told you that I’ve been working at Moira’s coffee shop a few mornings a week. We open at 6, so I’m usually out of here by 5:30. I’ll try not to wake you. I assume you work 9-5?”

“Yeah, I’ll probably be out of the house by 8:30 at the latest. But I’m not really worried about roommate stuff. We're both adults. I don’t think we’re going to have too much trouble living together.” He raked his fingers through his hair – a nervous gesture, Charles guessed. “It’s the other stuff. The marriage stuff. I think we should establish some ground rules.”

Charles was surprised. “Oh. Yes, of course. What did you have in mind?” His palms started to itch. They always did when he was nervous. He was expecting that they would need to have a conversation like this, but that didn't mean he was looking forward to it.

“Well, the first thing is I don’t think we should date anybody else. I mean, I won’t go dating anybody else, but I don’t think you should, either. It would look bad. And, okay, that would be a good reason why we end up divorcing, but I feel like it would make this living situation a lot harder.” He paused. “On both of us.”

It was a relief. The thought of Erik bringing other men home made Charles nauseous.

“That’s fine. I was going to suggest the same thing.”

Charles waited for Erik to say something else. Something about asking Charles never to touch him, probably. What Erik said was, “Your turn.”

“Oh. Well, I was thinking that we should go out together sometimes. It would be strange if we didn’t. Maybe we can make it a regular thing, like maybe we go out to dinner together every Wednesday or we go to the book store every Sunday. Something like that. We could come up with a few ideas. That would spare me having to ask you out. Not that I wouldn’t want to ask you out,” he sputtered, “but, well, I guess it’s simpler if we have some standing dates. I mean, they don’t have to be dates. Outings. We can call them outings.” Good Lord, this was more painful than he thought it would be.

“That’s fine, but I’ll probably be in Queens on Sunday nights.”

Again, Charles was tempted to ask why, but this conversation was awkward enough without prying.

Charles continued, “And, related to that, if either of us is doing something where a spouse would normally come along, I think we should be obligated to attend together.”

Erik frowned. “What do you mean? Like what?”

“Like weddings, funerals, dinner parties, work events, family functions, things like that.”

“Okay,” Erik said. He nodded slowly, like he was thinking that over.

“Why, do you have something coming up?”

“No, no funerals coming up.” Odd that that was the word he clung to. “I also wanted to ask,  what kind of health insurance do you have?”

Charles shrugged. “I work off the books making lattes. I don’t have insurance. Why, are you sick?”

“No, no I'm fine. You really don't have health insurance?” He looked as incredulous as if Charles just told him that he didn't have electricity.

“No. I did when I was at Columbia, but not anymore. It's too expensive and I don't really need it. I take psychic dampeners, but I just pay out of pocket for the prescription.”

Erik looked stricken, offended. “You take dampeners?” Charles realized he probably shouldn't have just dropped something like that into conversation. He may as well have started talking about abortion or the death penalty. Charles spent so much time with humans these days that, until he saw the pain in Erik's eyes, he'd forgotten what visceral reactions other mutants had to even the notion of suppressants. Erik shook his head. “I think it’s barbaric,” he said. “After everything we’ve fought for.”

Charles backtracked. “No one forces me to take them, if that's what you think. My telepathy is quite strong and the dampeners make it easier for me function day-to-day. Mostly I’m just used to them. My mom started me on them when I was nine years old, when the worst I did was convince the maid to give me ice cream for dinner. I didn’t have much of a choice in taking them for a long time, and by the time I was old enough to choose not to, I found it too hard to adjust.” The pained expression on Erik's face was inscrutable. Ironically, if Charles hadn't taken the dampeners that morning, he might have known if Erik looked pained in sympathy or in anger. “I don’t mind it, though. All they really do is make me have to try a little harder. I don’t overhear thoughts without purposely listening, for example.”

Erik looked thoughtful then, and Charles wondered if he was thinking back to that morning in Las Vegas, when he’d complained of Erik shouting in his mind. A perfect example of what happens when he forgets to take the dampeners. They wouldn't be here in the first place if only Charles had been sober enough to remember to take the fucking dampeners that day.

Or maybe they would be here, but making out on the couch instead of negotiating their time together from opposite sides of the room. Charles tried not to think about it.

“Even so,” Erik said, “you talk about your telepathy as though it’s an affliction, not a gift. And it is a gift, Charles.” The compassion in Erik's voice made Charles blush, and Erik must have noticed because he cleared his throat and grunted, “So I'll put you on my insurance, then.”

“Yes, good idea,” Charles said, trying to maintain his composure.

“I also think we should wear the rings.”

If Charles wasn't blushing before, he was certainly blushing now. “Oh. Oh, right. Did you keep them?”

Erik pulled a misshapen silvery lump out of his pocket with a rueful smile. “Depends what you mean by ‘keep them.’” Erik stepped forward and, with his power, began to smooth the lump into two rings. “At least this time I’m sober. Maybe they’ll come out a little better than they did the first time around.”

Erik took Charles’ left hand in his, more tenderly than Charles expected, while the metal floated forward and wrapped itself around his finger. It fitted smoothly over his knuckle and resized itself, rippling and pulling and shaping into a simple design, the fit perfect, the metal already warm. Charles' breath caught as he watched. All he could hear was the pounding of his heart, all he could feel was Erik's touch.

“Incredible,” Charles breathed, “You are incredible,” and he looked up to catch Erik’s gaze, which he found focused on him instead of the ring. “Your power. It's extraordinary.”

Erik smirked. “If you like what I did to the lighter, you should see what I can do to a beer can.”

Finally Charles pulled his eyes from Erik’s, wishing that the metal of their rings was half as beautiful as their bright steely gray.

Erik quickly shaped the other half of the aluminum lump into a ring for himself and said, “Well, I’m going to see about unpacking.”

“Right. I’ll leave you to it, then.”

When Erik retreated back to his room, Charles took a picture of the ring with his phone and texted it to Raven with the message, _It’s official._

A few minutes later, Raven texted back: _You’re an idiot. But at least this time it’s not a dick pic._

 

*

 

While Erik was unpacking, Charles went to the library to return a book. When he returned, he found a note taped to the refrigerator that said “Went out. –E.” Erik still hadn’t returned by the time Charles went to bed that night.

Charles woke up at 7:30 the following morning, threw on his glasses, and got up to make a pot of coffee. For all the top-of-the-line cookware in the apartment, the old Mr. Coffee was the only appliance that got regular use, and Charles already had it brewing before he’d barely opened his eyes. He leaned his head against the kitchen cabinet and watched it drip. He scratched at his chin. He needed a shave.

As soon as there was enough in the pot for one cup, Charles interrupted it and poured the coffee into his current favorite mug (the oversized Mickey Mouse one that Raven sent him as a joke), then left the pot to continue brewing while he stumbled over to the couch to see what was on TV.

Charles was on his third cup of coffee and second episode of Top Chef when Erik emerged from his bedroom. Charles froze. He didn’t think Erik had come back for the night, and here he was making his first impression as roommate/husband: bedhead, glasses, unshaven ginger beard, dingy once-white t-shirt, boxers, reality TV, and giant Mickey Mouse mug.

“Oh. I, uh, I didn’t realize you were here,” he said.

Erik stood there and took in the scene. “Nice glasses,” he said, and even with the dampeners in full effect, Charles knew he was trying not to laugh. Charles’ glasses were enormous old things with lenses as thick as the bottom of a beer glass. They made him look like a bug.

“I haven’t put my contacts in yet.”

 “I thought mutants weren’t supposed to need glasses. Isn’t that part of the deal? Strong senses, slowed aging…?”

“You know as well as I do that there is plenty of variation. I may need glasses, but I got an extra helping of slowed aging.”

“Oh?”

“Didn’t I tell you? I’m sixty-three years old.”

Erik let a small laugh, then stopped himself. “You are joking, right?”

Charles smiled. “Yes, I’m joking. I’m 29. Actually, I turn 30 next month, and I’ll probably have a party. You’ll come if I do, won’t you? My sister is flying back from California, so we’ll at least go out with her.”

“I’ll be there,” Erik said, then asked, “Can I have some coffee?”

“Oh, of course, help yourself.”

Erik went to pour himself a cup, then wandered back over to the couch with a paperback in hand. “Do you mind if I sit?” he asked.

“Please, sit.” God, Charles thought, he really must hate me if he’s asking permission to sit next to me on the couch.

Erik sat at the other end of the sofa and took a sip at his coffee. Charles saw that he was still looking at him. “What?” he asked.

“Are you sure those are glasses or are you wearing the bottom end of a telescope?”

Charles threw a pillow at him. “Very funny.”

Okay, so he’s teasing, at least. Erik can’t hate him that much.

 

*

 

It was a few days before Charles worked up the nerve to go out in public with Erik, though, and even then it was completely by accident. He woke up one morning for his shift at the café and found Erik leaving the apartment at the same time he was.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Charles asked.

“No, I thought I’d go for a run in the park before work.”

“Oh.”

They both stood at the door, neither of them moving to open it.

“Should we leave together?” Erik asked.

“I suppose so.” Charles hesitated before reaching for the doorknob.

They walked down the hall together and both pushed the button on the elevator at the same time. Erik jumped when their fingers brushed. They rode the elevator down to the lobby and Charles held the door open for Erik. When they reached the sidewalk, Erik asked where the café was.

“It’s on Columbus. Just a few blocks up.”

Erik scratched at the back of the head. “Should I walk you to work?”

“No, no, it’s the other direction. Don’t worry about it.”

“No, I will. I’ll walk you over there. I’d like to see it.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Neither of them seemed totally on board with the idea, but off they went anyway, walking the five blocks to Moira’s café. Of course Moira was standing in the window when they arrived and she ran out to say hello.

“I haven’t seen you since the airport,” Moira said to Erik, “I haven’t even gotten to congratulate you.”

Erik looked trapped. He looked like a performer who nailed the audition and then wasn’t expecting the stage fright. “Oh, thanks.”

“And you’re walking Charles to work now! That’s so nice.”

“Yeah,” Erik said. “I was just going to go for a run, though, so I’ll see you later.” He then looked at Charles and froze.

Moira rolled her eyes. “I’ve already seen you stick your tongue down his throat and your hand down his pants. You can kiss him goodbye.”

Erik turned beet red and pecked Charles on the cheek, then ran – literally, ran – down Columbus and turned at the nearest corner.

Moira frowned at Charles. “You picked a weird one,” she said.

“Yeah, I know.”

 

*

 

It got easier with each passing day. After a week they made good on their plan to make regular dates and started going out to dinner together. They watched TV together. They sat on the couch together without asking each other permission. Sharing the apartment stopped being awkward and they made no effort to avoid each other. Erik would drape himself across the sofa reading and snacking and Charles would pace and flip through his research notes and watch reality TV and call Raven and neither of them minded the other’s company one bit.

One thing Charles noticed, though, was that Erik seemed to be on the phone a lot, but never seemed to be enjoying it. He’d hear Erik’s half of the conversation, and it invariably went something like: “Uh huh. Yeah. No. Uh huh. Uh huh. Nothing. A bowl of soup. No. No. Yeah. Uh huh. Okay. Okay. Yeah, okay. I said I would. Yes, I promise. No, I take the subway. All right. Uh huh. Okay, I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

“Who is that you’re always talking to?” Charles finally asked one day.

Erik sighed. “My mother.”

That made sense, Charles thought. “I don’t get along with my mother, either.”

“What? No, we get along fine. She just gets bored and calls me all the time and I have nothing to talk about.”

“Well, at least she calls you,” Charles said, and immediately regretted it. “Does she know about me? About us?”

“No,” Erik said. “I haven’t told her. I don’t want her to get her hopes up. She wants grandchildren.”

Charles smiled, a little jealous. “I don’t think my mom will know what to do when I turn up with kids someday. I don’t think she knew what to do with her own.”

“So you do want children?” Erik asked.

Charles shrugged. “Of course, yeah.”

Erik opened his mouth to say something else, but instead chewed his lip and frowned. “Why haven’t I met your mother yet? Isn’t this whole charade supposed to be directed at her?”

“I told her, and now she’s mad at me for eloping and is giving me the silent treatment. Give it a couple of months. She’ll turn up and raise hell when we least expect it, I promise you.” He looked over at Erik then and said, “I’d really like to meet your mother, though.”

Erik shook his head. “I’d really rather keep her out of this.”

“And if, down the line, someone realizes that your own mother didn’t know we were married?”

Erik frowned. “We can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

 

*

 

So there were still secrets between them, but they were getting along. Charles' hope that they could be friends through this was coming true. And two and a half weeks after Erik moved in, Charles finally got his smile.

It happened when Erik came home from work and found Charles trying to put together a new desk. He was sitting on the ground with a pencil tucked behind his ear surrounded by panels and hammers and screws and bolts, staring at the instruction booklet and wondering if he was holding it upside down.

Erik stood over him with his hands on his hips, plainly amused at what he saw. When Charles grumbled and asked Erik to hand him a screwdriver, Erik used his powers to float it over to him. Then, just as Charles started lining up parts of the desk, Erik lifted his hands and directed the pieces into the air. The bolts fitted themselves. The screws twisted into the holes and the panels aligned, the desk's legs stood up on their own and, moments later, Charles had his new desk.

Charles watched the performance in awe, like a child at a magic show. Erik saw the look of wonder on Charles' face and smirked. Charles realized he was gaping and corrected himself, frowned at Erik's smug expression.

“Show off,” he said.

And Erik's smirk broke into a grin and he laughed, and Charles laughed along with him.


	5. Chapter 5

Spring moved in a few weeks after Erik, and brought with it warm, sunny days that were designed for playing hookey. There was plenty that Charles could do with his afternoon (catch up on scientific journals, go over the thesis pages that Hank had sent him for review, reread his own manuscript for the 6,458th time, maybe push a few more pins into his Sebastian Shaw voodoo doll, for example), but when he and Moira stepped out of the café at 1:30 and into a picture-perfect Thursday afternoon, he was ready to follow her wherever she wanted to go.

Where she wanted to go turned out to be an Upper East Side thrift store she’d read about online, where old rich ladies liked to sell their Chanel purses after only three months of use. Charles had no interest in the store, but he didn’t mind taking a trip to the other side of the park with Moira. It beat sitting inside. Erik had taken the day off, and he didn’t see why he shouldn’t take the day off, too.

Moira didn’t find anything notable at the thrift store, and Charles spent most of the time pacing and wondering when they could leave. He did, however, stumble upon a vintage tie clip he thought Erik might like and bought it for him before he could talk himself out of it.

“How’s it going with him?” Moira asked as they walked down Second Avenue.

“It’s going well. Surprisingly well, actually. Better than expected.”

“Not going to kick him out of bed any time soon?”

 _If only_ , Charles thought.

He shrugged. “We’re just getting along really well. We hang out, we go out to dinner, we go for walks. We went to the movies last week. We saw the stupidest movie I've ever seen: Return of the Dead 2, have you seen it? It was supposed to be a horror movie but by the time we walked out of there Erik's shirt had a big wet spot on the shoulder because I was crying from laughing so hard.”

“So, you’re dating him.”

Again Charles thought, _if only_. “I just… I like him, that’s all. I really like him.”

“Well he really likes you,” Moira said, and Charles rolled his eyes and said “Oh, no he doesn’t,” which was probably the wrong thing to say, but Moira didn’t seem to notice. “Of course he does. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. It’s like he wants to bite your cheeks, it’s nauseating.” Charles didn’t have anything to say to that. He just smiled to himself and kept his mouth shut. “No one is forcing him to walk you to work in the morning and kiss you goodbye. He could just go straight to the park if he wants to run, or he could sleep in like more normal people, but no, he walks you to the cafe almost every morning and kisses you and tells you to have a good day. He likes you.”

Charles was blushing furiously at this point. He'd been brushing aside Erik's morning walks with him as just part of the charade, but sometimes it didn't feel that way. Maybe Erik was enjoying their time together as much as he was. Maybe it wasn't all for show. Maybe he might still have a shot with Erik after all. Charles could barely hold in his smile thinking about the possibility. Walking down the street with an unstoppable grin on his face, he probably looked like a lunatic.

They approached a deli and Charles decided to pop in and compose himself. “I'm just going to get a bottle of water,” he told Moira. “Do you want anything? No? Okay, just a minute. I'll be right out.” He went in, walked to the back of the store, and rested his forehead on the cool refrigerator case. They had kind of been dating the past couple of weeks, hadn't they? Of course, they hadn't called it dating. Well, they had, but that was part of the ruse, wasn't it? Maybe they'd been dating this whole time and Charles didn't even realize it. But if they had been dating, wouldn't Erik have made a move by now?

Maybe he should take Erik's advice and stop taking the dampeners. This all would be so much easier if he knew what the hell was going on.

Charles paid for his bottle of water and took a long swig, then stepped outside to find Moira. But she wasn't in front of the deli. He looked up and down the street, and a moment later he heard someone yell, “Charles! Over here!” He looked up and saw Moira waving at him from across the street, standing next to a sidewalk table in front of a restaurant. Erik was sitting at the table looking absolutely miserable. Across from him sat an older woman Charles didn't recognize wearing a look of wide-eyed happiness, the reason for which Charles couldn't imagine.

His heart beat wildly in panic as he crossed the street and approached the restaurant.

“Isn't this funny?” Moira said when Charles reached the table. “You didn’t tell me Erik was out with his mother today. I was just telling Edie how happy I was that you and Erik decided to make a go of it. I’m sure there are plenty of people who get married in Las Vegas and –“

“Moira!” Charles interrupted her. Erik slid down in his seat and pinched the bridge of his nose. Erik’s mother was stunned still. Charles raised his fingers to his temple and said pointedly, “Moira, here comes the bus. Why don’t you get on it?”

Moira blinked and nodded and wandered over to the corner without even saying goodbye.

The older woman stood, and Charles noticed then that there was no hair under the bright paisley scarf she had wrapped around her head. “Are you Charles?” she asked, beaming widely. Her smile looked like Erik's at its best.

“Uh, yes?” he answered, and she pulled him into a brusque hug,

“Oh, my goodness! It's so wonderful to finally” –she kissed his cheek– “meet you! I've heard so much about you!” She wiped the lipstick residue off his cheek with her thumb. “Erik talks about you all the time!”

Charles was grinning. “Really?” He looked over at Erik, who shrugged in exasperated defeat.

Meanwhile, Erik’s mother was already calling over a waiter for a menu and pulling Charles into the seat beside hers.

“I knew Erik was hiding you from me! I knew it!” she said and hugged him again, “And I can’t imagine why! Look at you, you are so cute! And did she say you got married in Las Vegas? Erik! Why wouldn’t you tell me something like that? Why don’t you tell me anything?”

“She was joking, Ma,” Erik said, “That’s Moira’s idea of a joke. She has a terrible sense of humor.”

“Do I look stupid to you?” Edie said. “She wasn’t joking!” She turned to Charles, who was still smiling. He wasn’t used to having someone fawn over him like this and he was eating it up. “She wasn’t joking, was she? You can tell me, it’s okay. He’s so afraid to tell me anything because he doesn't want to make me upset. I knew that one day it would be something big! I knew it! So, it’s true, isn’t it? You got married in Las Vegas?” Charles looked cautiously over at Erik, and that was enough answer for Edie, who burst with happiness and gave Charles another big kiss on the cheek and squeezed him as tight as she could. She turned back to Erik. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

With Charles and his mother both beaming at him, Erik gave in. There was no use fighting it anymore. A smile tugged at his lips, and he shrugged again and said, “It was a spur of the moment thing. I guess I wanted to see if it would last before I told you about it.”

“And?” she asked. This time Erik looked over at Charles for an answer, and when neither of them said anything, Edie's eyes started to well with happiness.

When she stood up, Charles noticed the Memorial Sloan-Kettering tote bag under her chair, and realized they were only a few blocks from the cancer center.

She walked around the table to Erik, took his head in her hands and said, “Oh, sweetie,” and kissed his face and pulled him close.

The expression on Erik’s face went from annoyed to defeated to relieved. He looked so peaceful and pleased as his mother held him and told him how happy she was for him, so proud of him, that she just wanted him to be happy, to be loved, and just as Erik’s own voice started to break, the waiter came over and asked Charles if he wanted anything.

Charles started to say no, that he didn’t want to interrupt and couldn’t stay, but Edie returned to her seat saying, “Don’t be silly! We’re having lunch. Don’t think you’re getting away that easy.” So with an approving nod from Erik, Charles gave in and ordered a sandwich and an iced tea.

When the waiter left, Edie took Charles’ hand and said, “What, you boys don’t wear wedding rings?”

Charles had a moment of panic thinking he lost his before Erik pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to him across the table, explaining, “I pulled it off you when you walked over here.” He slipped his own back on as well.

“That’s why you moved out, isn’t it?” she said. “You moved in with Charles?” Erik nodded. “I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out myself. I mean, I wouldn’t have guessed marriage, but you’re always talking about him, ‘Charles said this, Charles did that.’ And you’ve seemed so happy lately. You’re smiling more and you’re dressing better and you always have something nice to say. I can’t believe I didn’t put it together myself.”

Erik smiled softly to himself and looked away.

She then turned to Charles and said, “I want you to tell me everything.”

“Okay, what would you like to know?”

“Tell me about yourself. Where did you grow up? What kind of mutation do you have?”

Charles was startled, and Erik said, “Ma, come on, you know you can’t just ask people that.”

“I know you,” she said, “And I know you would never marry a human.”

“It’s okay,” Charles said, “I’m a telepath, and I grew up in London until I was nine and then we moved over here, to Westchester.”

“What kind of work do you do?” she asked next.

Erik answered, “He has a PhD in espresso,” and smirked at him. Charles had seen the expression before, had heard the teasing tone from Erik plenty of times, but this was the first time since Las Vegas that Charles allowed himself to read it as flirting.

To Edie’s confusion, Charles explained, “I have a PhD in genetics. I used to be a professor at Columbia, but right now I’m just working in Moira’s coffee shop.”

“Why ‘used to be’? What happened?”

“Well, there was a bit of controversy, and it ended up with me getting put on leave of absence indefinitely.”

Erik’s mother looked concerned. “What? Why? What happened?” Erik also looked concerned, and he sat forward in his chair. Charles probably should have told him this story weeks ago, but for all the time they spent together, they rarely talked about work.

“I had made something of a breakthrough and the department head, Dr. Shaw, stole some of my research and then accused me of stealing it from him. He accused me of plagiarism and got me suspended. I lost my research grants, lost my funding, lost my classes. I lost my students. By the end of it I was out of a job and my reputation was ruined.”

Erik looked furious. “Can’t you prove that he stole it?”

“I could, and I tried to, but a telepath’s word doesn’t go very far, especially not with someone like Shaw telling everyone that I was manipulating them and lying. I even tried to use my prescription for dampeners as proof that I hadn’t manipulated anybody, but they saw it more as proof that I could.”

“Oh, honey,” Edie took Charles’ hand, “You don’t need to take dampeners. You’re just perfect. And you’ll find a way back in, I know you will.”

Charles could have cried. When he told his own mother, she just sighed and said, “Well, when you’re ready to come work for the company, let me know. I can always fire Lutz. You can have his job.”

“Thank you,” he said sincerely.

“What are you going to do?” Erik asked. “I know you’re not going to pack it in and make lattes for the rest of your life. You must have some kind of plan.”

“Well,” Charles started, “Worst case scenario would be I go back out into the job market and beg for some school – any school – to take me, or see if I can find work elsewhere, maybe in pharmaceutical research or something like that. But I haven’t given up yet. I'm still trying to find funding. Maybe if I had the money to back my research, I might be able to get my old job back. Columbia is always a sucker for a good donation.” He shrugged. “Money usually talks.”

Erik must have understood what Charles was trying to say because he sat back in his seat and nodded like he’d just been given a mission.

“I’m sure it will all work out,” Edie said. “You know, Erik got his Master’s at Cornell. Maybe he can put in a good word for you.”

“Ma, no one at Columbia cares what I have to say about anything. What would you expect me to do? Walk in there and tell them to be nice to my husband?”

“It was just a suggestion!” She turned to Charles and winked.

Edie pushed her chair back and stood again. “I'm going to go find the ladies room,” she said, and as she walked past Charles, she squeezed his shoulders and kissed his cheek and said, “I'm so happy for you boys.” She weaved through the tables and chairs and into the restaurant, leaving Charles and Erik alone.

When she was gone, Charles leaned across the table and said, “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll throw an extra $2 million in the divorce settlement if you let me keep your mom.”

Erik laughed, but he didn’t seem all that amused. “Good. Keep her. Then you can explain to her why we'll be divorcing. She may be sweet to you now, but she’ll be screaming her head off at me on the way home for lying to her.”

“I really thought she would be more surprised.”

Erik shook his head. “This isn’t the first time I’ve done something drastic and impulsive.” He took a sip from his water glass and said no more. He must have set a hell of a precedent.

“I’m really sorry about interrupting your lunch like this. I promise you, I had no idea you were here and I never would have— ”

“It’s okay. I know this was an accident.” He leaned forward and whispered, “Did you use your power to get Moira to leave?”

Charles sputtered and became defensive. “It seemed like an emergency. I don’t normally do that, you know.”

“I know. But even through the dampeners you could do that?” Charles shrugged and nodded. “Pretty impressive.”

“I told you, my power is quite strong. The dampeners don't silence it completely.”

Erik sat back and smiled. “Very impressive.”

Charles was flattered. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had complimented him on his mutation – not by anyone other than scientists and researchers, anyway. Even then it was more academic. They might say it was fascinating or interesting, but Erik was raking his eyes over him like, well… maybe Moira had been right.

There was no time to consider it, though, because Edie returned from the bathroom and resumed questioning as soon as she was back in her chair. “So, what are you doing in this neighborhood, Charles?” she asked.

“Nothing much. Moira wanted to visit a thrift store a few blocks from here and I agreed to tag along.”

She gestured to the brown paper bag he'd placed on the table when he arrived. “Is that where the bag is from? Can we see what you got?”

“Oh,” Charles said and blushed. “Uh, actually, it's for Erik. It’s nothing, really. Just something I thought he might like.”

Edie was charmed. “You are so thoughtful.”

Charles pulled out the tie clip and handed it to Erik. “I just saw it in the store and I thought it would go with your suit. The gray one.”

Erik took the clip from Charles and turned it over in his fingers, studying it, probably feeling it out with his power.

“If you don't want it, I promise you I won't be insulted,” Charles said. “I'll wear it. Or I can give it away.”

“No,” Erik said, “I love it. Thank you.” And he leaned across the table and gave Charles a kiss, and Charles wasn’t sure if it was genuine or if it was just a big show for his mom, but he didn’t really care either way – he enjoyed it just the same.

 

*

 

As if Edie didn’t love Charles enough already, he picked up the bill for lunch and wouldn’t hear a word of protest from either her or Erik. “I crashed the party, it’s only right that I pay for it,” he said.

They left the restaurant and walked slowly down the street. Erik’s mom wasn’t moving very fast, though she assured them she wasn’t in any pain. When they reached the corner, she took Charles’ hand and absolutely insisted that the two of them come out to her house for brunch on Sunday.

“Oh, I’m not sure if we’ll be able to make it,” Charles said, “My birthday is on Saturday and my sister is flying in for the weekend.”

“Bring her along!” Edie said, “I would love to meet her.”

Charles realized then that he and Erik were standing side by side, and very close to one another. Erik had been so affectionate, and Charles had yet to really reciprocate, so he took a chance and put his arm around Erik’s waist. He looked up at Erik for a reaction, and Erik smiled down at him. He looked pleased. Relieved, even.

Charles couldn’t stand his curiosity one more minute and decided to go in and take a look. He knew he could push through the dampeners and get a quick read on what Erik was thinking, but he wasn’t sure he could do it without giving himself away. He hadn’t practiced much in the past year or two (and even before that he’d rarely used his powers outside a laboratory setting), and he hadn’t exactly been delicate with Moira. Still, Charles decided to chance it and take a peek.

He brought his fingers to his temple and pretended he was just scratching his head. He concentrated. Getting through the dampeners required a bit of force and a lot of precision, and the slightest mistake would would echo through both their minds. A tiny tendril of thought escaped Charles and poked at Erik for an entrance.

Erik physically jumped. Charles pulled his hand from Erik’s waist, looked up, and saw Erik staring at him, looking startled and confused.

Edie smirked and called him feisty. She must have thought that Charles had just pinched Erik’s ass. Charles wished he had. It probably would have been more welcome than uninvited mental penetration.

She wrapped Charles up in another hug and kissed him goodbye. When she let go, Charles turned to Erik, who still looked a bit stunned, but continued the charade with a chaste peck on the cheek and an “I’ll be home later.” Charles nodded and said okay and tried not to look too ashamed of himself for what he’d done.

He stood at the bus stop and watched them walk away, and about a half a block down, Erik turned back and looked at him. As for what he was thinking, Charles had no idea.

 

*

 

By the time Erik got home that evening, Charles had already decided that he wasn’t going to say anything about poking at Erik’s mind without permission. At least, not unless Erik said something about it first. Then he would be more than willing to grovel and beg forgiveness, but otherwise he was just going to pretend that nothing happened.

“I had a really good time today,” Charles said to Erik after he’d slumped into the couch looking exhausted. “I know you didn’t want me to meet your mother, but I’m really glad I did.” Erik looked Charles up and down, but didn’t say anything. “I’m surprised you went along with it. I almost expected you to pretend you didn’t know me and send me away.”

He sighed. “She seemed so happy.” He shrugged.

Charles sat down on the couch beside Erik and said. “She’s sick, isn’t she?” He nodded. “Cancer?” He nodded again. “How is she doing?”

“It’s hard to say. Every time they tell us she’s in the clear it seems like a month later they’ve found something else.”

“Is that why you agreed to all this? The marriage, the settlement, I mean.” Erik nodded again, and Charles winced in sympathy. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don't like to talk about it. I guess I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me.” He shifted a little closer to Charles. “Why didn’t you tell me about what happened at Columbia?”

“I guess I was embarrassed.”

Erik smiled. “Maybe we should start telling each other things.”

Charles chuckled. “Yeah, maybe we should. Communication is the foundation of fake marriages, right?” Charles’ phone rang in his pocket. “It’s Raven,” he told Erik and answered the call.

Erik stood from the couch and went to his room. “Thanks for the tie clip,” he said, and shut the door behind him.

 

*

 

Raven’s flight was due to arrive in the late afternoon and she absolutely insisted that Charles didn’t need to come and pick her up from the airport. She could get from JFK to Charles’ apartment just fine on her own, thank you very much, she was nineteen years old and she’s done this a hundred times and she’s been getting around the city by herself since she was twelve and he didn’t need to treat her like a baby, Charles, gosh. So he kept his Friday afternoon dentist appointment, but still sent a car service to pick her up. He had the driver stand there holding up a sign that said PRINCESS TIANA on it. He wished he could have seen her face when she saw it.

He hadn’t been to the dentist in a few years, but since he was on Erik’s health plan now and that included dental, he decided to go in for a cleaning and a checkup. Unfortunately, it turned out that waiting a few years between dental appointments was a bad idea, and the appointment ran way over time. They insisted they do a deep cleaning, and Charles wasn’t exactly sure what they were doing in his mouth for forty minutes, but it felt like they were pulling his teeth out one by one, scraping out the hole with a butcher’s knife, and then mixing them up and putting them back in different slots. He tried to focus on other things, like counting the dots on the ceiling, wondering if the model in the teeth whitening advertisement on the wall was actually a young Jon Hamm, and deciding what he was going to do to entertain Raven while she was in town.

He tried not to think about the medical procedures Erik’s mother must have been put through over the past couple of years, or how he must have felt watching her suffer through them. He also tried not to think about the way Erik looked at him during lunch the day before, or Erik’s smile, or Erik’s teeth, or what dentist appointments with him must be like. Maybe he should ask the hygienist about him. Surely she would remember that mouth.

He got out of the dentist’s office late and his gums felt like hamburger meat. He hoped Raven made it okay. She texted that she had, but still he worried. He just wanted to see her.

It was after six when he got home, pushed open the apartment door, and found Erik standing in the kitchen with Mary Poppins.

“You made it,” Charles said happily and went to give her a hug, but Mary was stiff and formal in her frilly white dress, bonnet, and parasol, and she just said, “Close your mouth, Charles, we are not a codfish.”

Erik laughed, and Charles crossed his arms and glared at her until she resumed her usual blond guise and gave him a hug.

“I see you’ve already met Erik,” he said then, and when he turned to look at him, he noticed that Erik had gotten his hair cut that day. It was quite short, too short even to comb back and slick down the way he normally did. It looked soft. “Oh,” Charles said when he realized he was staring, “You got your hair cut. I like it. It looks good.”

“Thanks,” Erik said, and flattened it down with his hand.

Raven rolled her eyes and morphed her long blond hair into a very short pixie cut.

“Oh, I’m sorry, was someone not paying attention to you for more than ten seconds?” Charles teased and pulled her into a headlock and gave her a noogie.

Erik stood back and watched while they fought and laughed and caught up. When Charles stopped and turned back to him, he looked a little sad.

“I was thinking we could go down to the Village and go to that hookah bar for dinner. Are you up for falafel?” He turned back to Raven. “Sound good?”

“Erik and I already ordered Chinese food,” she said.

“You did?”

“Yeah, I’ve had kind of a rough week. I thought we could just hang out and watch a movie.”

Charles looked back and forth between Erik and Raven, feeling a little like they were conspiring against him. Raven always accused him of getting irrationally upset when things didn’t happen the way he wanted them to, even little things. He didn’t need Erik knowing that about him just yet, so he forced himself to smile and say, “No, that’s great. Good idea.”

Raven saw through it. “If you’re going to pout about it, we can go get falafel and eat the Chinese food tomorrow. It’s okay.”

“I am not pouting. I do not pout.”

“You’re pouting a little,” Erik said, and he and Raven exchanged an amused glance.

Charles frowned to himself. He never should have let them meet. He should have known they would gang up on him.

“I promise, it’s fine, okay? I’ve been up since 5. I don’t mind skipping a trip downtown. We can go there another time.” He drummed his fingers on the kitchen table. “Can I at least have a say in what movie we watch, or have you already decided that, too?”

Erik snorted, and Raven pulled two DVDs out of her bag. “I have to watch these for my film class,” she said, “If I let you pick which one, will that make you feel better?”

Charles refused to say that it did. He just picked one and went to change his shirt and pretended that the two of them weren’t laughing at him behind his back.

The food came, and someone, one of them, had ordered Charles his favorite: Kung Pao chicken. It was probably Raven, he thought.

Charles didn’t realize when he was choosing the movie that the one he picked was a Belgian film with subtitles. Raven seemed to be enjoying it well enough, probably thanks to class discussions, but Charles was bored and could barely keep his eyes open long enough to follow the dialogue. He also missed a lot of it by looking over at Erik, trying to figure out if he was enjoying the movie. Most of the time when Charles looked over at Erik, he was staring at the screen looking slightly bored. A couple of times, Charles looked over and caught Erik looking back at him. Definitely bored, then.

Then Charles opened his eyes and Erik was standing over him, patting his arm and saying, “The movie’s over. Why don’t you go to bed?”

Oh, hell, he’d fallen asleep.

“What?” he yawned, “No, Raven’s sleeping in my bed tonight.”

“It’s okay, Charles,” she said, “You go to bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Charles said nothing, just shuffled off to bed and went right to sleep.

 

*

 

Charles woke up first the next morning, like he usually did. He remembered the days when he had a well-earned reputation for sleeping until noon whenever he got the chance, but the early morning schedule at Moira’s had changed all that. Besides, as of midnight he was thirty years old. Sleeping in was for college kids. He wasn’t a student anymore, nor was he a professor. He was a thirty year old barista with a wasted degree and a fake marriage. Happy birthday, indeed.

He got up and turned on the coffee pot, not particularly caring that Raven was asleep on the couch. She woke up as soon as she smelled it, groaned and mumbled, “Come on, Charles, I’m jetlagged.”

“Tough. It’s my birthday and I want coffee.”

She got up and walked over to give him a weak hug. “Happy birthday,” she said, and pulled a couple of mugs down from the cabinet. Charles was surprised to see that she didn’t bother shifting from blue to blond like she usually did when she got up, but he didn’t say anything about it. “How does it feel being so old?” she asked.

“It sucks.” He wondered if he looked old. He was standing there in the kitchen in his pajamas and glasses waiting for the coffee pot, just like he did when he was twenty, just like he probably would when he was forty. The scene was the same. Only he would have changed.

“It’s not so bad,” Raven said, “At least this year you have Erik.”

Charles glared at her. “You know I don’t ‘have’ Erik,” he said, and Raven smiled and wiggled her eyebrows at him. “What? What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Just he and I stayed up talking last night.”

Charles froze.

“Talking about what? What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

The fake innocent act wasn’t working on Charles. “‘Nothing’ my ass. What did you say to him?”

“I didn’t say anything, but you should say something to him. You still owe him an explanation for why you dumped him that first morning in Las Vegas.”

Charles frowned as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “What? But that was so long ago.”

“And you still haven’t told him why. And every time he thinks you might be interested, you say something or do something that makes him think it’s all just for show after all, and then he remembers that, last he checked, he was still dumped. You need to un-dump him.”

“What? No, you must have misunderstood him. If he liked me, he would have made a move by now, and he hasn’t.”

“No, Charles, it’s your move. You dumped him and then hired him to play your husband. You’ve been setting the pace. It’s up to you to let him know that you’re open to more than that.”

It took Charles a couple of minutes to process what Raven was trying to tell him. “Wait, so does that mean that he does— ”

Erik stepped out of his bedroom before Charles could finish the sentence. He walked over and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Good morning, Raven,” he said, and turned to Charles. “Happy birthday, Mr. Magoo.” Erik smiled at Charles, but Charles was too stunned to return it. He just gaped at Erik, who said, “What? Do I have something on my face?” and wiped at his beard.

Charles shook himself. “No. No, sorry, I just. Thank you. For wishing me a happy birthday, I mean.” Now Erik and Raven were staring at him. He must be turning bright red. He deflected attention to Raven and said, “Raven, why don’t you get dressed?”

Raven was wearing a tank top and shorts, but she knew that Charles wasn’t actually talking about clothes. “Erik said he didn’t mind if I was blue.”

“She’s at home. She’s with family. Why should she have to hide?” He took a sip of coffee and winked at her. “I like the blue. It suits you.”

Charles chugged his coffee and slammed the mug down on the counter. “I’m going to take a shower,” he announced, and escaped for the bathroom to think.


	6. Chapter 6

Charles held his birthday party at the Irish pub next door to the cafe. It was cheap and lively and the crowds would hide how much his guest list had shrunk since his departure from Columbia. It was a good turnout, all in all, but nothing like the blowout parties Charles used to have at his apartment every year. He supposed those days were over.

He used to invite the entire genetics department, but aside from Hank, none of them spoke to him anymore. Over the past year or so, Charles had begun to count Hank as a good friend and confidante, and as time went on, their friendship was the only thing he didn’t regret about his time at Columbia. Hank still wasn’t allowed anywhere near Raven, though. Hank had been harboring a crush on Raven since she was in high school, and Charles let Hank know as soon as he arrived that he didn't care if he wasn't his student anymore or that she was nineteen now or even that she liked him in return. He was to keep three feet of space between him and his sister at all times.

Moira came, of course, and spent most of the night dodging the advances of the young, red-headed bartender. The rest of the cafe's staff came, too, along with some of their regular customers. Charles had put up a flyer near the register and made sure to let all of the familiar faces know that they were welcome to stop by for a drink. As a result, the entire staff of the cell phone store around the corner ended up attending Charles' birthday party, even though he'd never actually set foot in there himself. There were also a few other random friends and neighbors who came. Charles played on an amateur soccer league in the park every summer, so some of those guys came and brought their wives and girlfriends, too.

And, of course, Erik was there. Not that he was enjoying himself. Since Raven had told Charles that morning that Erik still had feelings for him, Charles had weighed his options and decided to do the grownup thing and avoid Erik for the rest of the day, or at least until he figured out what he was going to do. He knew what he wanted to do – let Erik bend him over the kitchen table and fuck him until he couldn’t remember his own name – but that would require telling Erik about what happened in Las Vegas, so instead Charles just avoided him. No doubt Erik guessed why, because he was in a sour mood. He may have arrived at the party with Charles, but he spent the rest of the evening lurking in the corner with Azazel. Thank god Charles had insisted that Erik invite some friends of his own. At least this way Charles wouldn’t have to subject his friends to Erik’s mood.

Charles’ own foul mood was bad enough. He was hoping that the party would cheer him up – being around people usually did – but everyone kept coming up to him and asking to meet his husband. “I didn’t even know you got married! Where is he?” people said, and Charles would just wave over to the corner and say, “That’s him over there. He’s a little shy and he has a headache. I’m sure he’ll come say hello later.” It was thoroughly depressing and he was sure that everyone saw through it.

So Charles made the rounds and said hello to everyone and thanked them for coming, then settled in on a bar stool and ordered a beer, which he ignored. He was too distracted thinking about Erik to drink, so he just took a few sips and watched Moira bicker with the redheaded bartender. Fortunately, the music was loud and people seemed to be having a good time. He was just starting to enjoy himself when he looked over and saw Raven flirting with Azazel and panicked. He left his beer on the bar and walked over to them.

“Raven!” he said. He put his arm around her shoulders and steered her away from Azazel. “I think Hank is looking for you. Why don’t you go find him?”

“But you said –“

“I changed my mind. You have my blessing. Go,” he said, and pushed her over towards Hank. He turned back to Azazel and Erik. “Sorry about that.”

“Your sister’s cute,” Azazel said.

Charles ignored him.

“Charles,” Erik said, “This is my friend Emma.” She stepped forward and stuck out her hand. Charles hadn’t even noticed her standing there, although he couldn’t explain why. She certainly was stunning, with her platinum bob and sharp eyes.

“Oh, nice to meet you, Emma,” he said and shook her hand. “Erik talks about you all the time.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you, too,” Emma said. “It’s always a thrill to meet another telepath.”

“What? You’re a telepath?” He looked from Emma to Erik and back again. “I didn’t know. But you’re right, of course, yes, it’s always lovely to meet another telepath.”

“And happy birthday,” she added.

“Thank you.” He turned to Erik, put his hand on his forearm and said, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Erik nodded and followed Charles to the other side of the room. “Something wrong?” he asked.

“No, of course not.” He tried to keep his tone light. “But why didn’t you tell me that Emma was a telepath?”

Erik shrugged. “I thought I did.”

“No, I would have remembered that. You told me she can turn to diamond.”

“She can do both.”

“I wish you would have told me.”

“Okay, well, now you know. Emma’s a telepath.” Erik was being tart with him.

“Erik, for god’s sake, I’m not angry or anything, I just wish you told me.” He leaned in closer. “Does she know? About us?”

“She got the same story as Moira, you know that.” He sipped at his beer.

“No, I know, but I mean, she’s a telepath. Could she know? Does she know?”

Erik looked affronted. “Emma has not gone digging around in my mind looking for dirt on our marriage, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But how can you be sure?”

Erik looked furious. He glared at Charles and pointed his finger at him and said, “You know, if someone said something like that about you, I’d knock their teeth in.” He paused, and Charles thought he might say more, but he just shook his head and walked away.

Charles stood there for a moment and watched Erik return to his friends, now looking angry as well as dejected. He wasn’t sure what he should have said. He sighed and returned to the bar.

Again, he sat there and listened to Moira’s conversation, still not interested in his beer. He was too depressed to drink. He knew he should probably get up and mingle with the other guests, maybe hover over Hank and Raven for a while, but he just couldn’t.

Moira was in the middle of explaining to the redheaded bartender why he was a misogynist and she would never touch him when Emma tapped Charles on the shoulder.

“Do you smoke?” she asked.

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, I do,” she said. “Come outside with me.”

Charles felt a little like he was being called into the principal’s office as he followed her out the door. He wondered how much of that conversation she’d overheard.

She led him outside and walked him to the edge of the building, away from the other smokers congregated near the entrance, and found them a touch of privacy.

“I wish Erik still smoked,” she said as she lit up. “I mean, I understand why he quit, but still, it’s no fun for me. Now I have to take my smoke breaks with Kitty the Intern.” She rolled her eyes. “If I have to listen to her tell me about what happened on America’s Next Top Mutant one more time I’m going to end up putting my cigarette out in her eye.”

Charles laughed. “I like that you said her eye and not yours.”

“Haven’t I suffered enough?” she smirked and put her lighter back into her purse.

“How long have you and Erik known each other?”

“Hm, nine years now. We started at the company at the same time. Different departments, obviously, but same New Employee Orientation. And same smoke breaks. I don’t know how nonsmokers make friends, I really don’t. He was right out of grad school and I was right out of college. And yet I’m still only 27 years old. Isn’t that funny how that works?”

“What? No, that can’t be right. You don’t look a day over 25.”

“Good answer.” She blew the smoke out of her lungs in a perfect, steady stream, straight into the air. “How long have you been taking the dampeners, Charles?”

He froze. “Did Erik tell you that?”

“Yes, but I would have known anyway. That wall goes both ways, you know. It’s like talking to someone wearing a blindfold.”

Charles hesitated before answering, “Well, I’m 30 now, so I’ve been on them for about 21 years, I guess.”

Emma choked on her inhale. “Oh my god,” she coughed, “You’re joking. You really haven’t used your telepathy for 21 years?”

“Well, that’s not exactly true.”

Emma was staring at him, squinting, like her eyes had gone blurry and she was trying to pull him into focus. She snapped out of it and tossed her hair. “One time, a couple of years ago, I used my telepathy to make Erik come to work in drag.”

Charles’ jaw dropped. “You did not!”

“I did. He said something really awful to a human friend of mine, so to punish him I left a bag of clothes in his apartment and some instructions in his mind that he should wear that stuff to work the next day. He showed up in a sparkly blue mini dress, fishnets, and a red wig. He just walked in nodding to everyone, like, ‘Yes, hello, good morning.’ He had no idea why everyone was staring at him.” She was laughing. “It was hilarious. I still have pictures, look.” She pulled out her phone, and sure enough, there was Erik standing in an office with his hands on his hips dressed like a third rate streetwalker.

“I’m surprised he didn’t kill you!” Charles was laughing, too.

“Oh, no, come on. It was a prank. He’s pranked me plenty of times, too. There was another time I was meeting with a client and he made the doorknobs on my office door look like dicks. So I shook the guy’s hand and he turned to leave and there was a giant penis sticking out of the door where the knob should have been.”

“Oh my god,” he was smiling. “And how have neither of you been fired for this?”

Emma shrugged and stubbed the remainder of her cigarette out on the wall. She threw the butt on the ground and pulled out another. “You’re not in any rush to get back in, are you?” she asked as she lit her second smoke.

Charles realized he was not.

“My point,” Emma continued, “is that you, as a telepath, are very lucky to be married to a guy like Erik.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” she fingered her cigarette as she tried to figure out what to say. “Erik is very pro-mutant. I’m sure you already know that, but it bears repeating. Not only that, but he’s already very familiar with telepathy. And not even just from you and me, he’s known at least one or two others, I think. I mean, I know I wasn’t the first one that he met. Knowing two is rare enough, but Erik has known at least three, probably four. Like I said, he’s very pro-mutant. These are the kinds of circles he used to run in.” She gestured to Charles that they should move still further from the door, and they took a few more steps down the street. “Do you understand what I’m saying? I really can’t tell.”

“Um, no, I’m not sure I do.”

“This is exactly what I mean about that wall going two ways. I think a lot of the miscommunications,” and she lingered on that word, “that you and Erik have been having might go away if you tore down the wall. And if there was anyone in the world who would be understanding about what that means and how that works, it would be Erik.”

Charles mulled that over and scratched at the back of his head. “What has he said to you?”

She shrugged. “He doesn’t like that you take dampeners. He’s fought for mutant rights his whole life, and I don’t think he ever imagined he’d marry someone who felt he had to hide.” She took a drag from her cigarette. “I also know that he’s crazy about you, but you and he haven’t been, well, I don’t know. Something’s not working, I guess.”

He looked into her eyes then, and asked, “How much do you know?”

“Charles, the point is that it doesn’t matter how much I know. Erik trusts me, and so should you, and you should trust him, too. People think that they can’t trust telepaths, but it’s the opposite. Telepaths have heard everything. We are the ultimate secret keepers.”

Charles put his hands in his pockets and looked towards the door. “You think he would understand?” he asked.

“I think that if anyone would, it would be him.”

Charles nodded, and Emma winked at him.

“Good,” she said. “Besides, you’re missing out, you know. You and Erik both.”

“What do you mean?”

She leaned forward. “Charles, you’ve spent your whole life fucking with your hands tied behind your back and you don’t even know it.” Her phone rang and she stuck her cigarette between her lips while she dug it out of her purse. “Not that there isn’t a time and a place for having your hands tied behind your back, of course.” She glanced at the caller I.D. “Speaking of which…” She answered. “Hello, Tom. What are you doing tonight?”

Tom must have said her, because Emma smiled.

Charles stood by while Emma tried to talk Tom into coming to the party. His heart and mind were racing and he realized that if he was ever going to have the nerve to talk to Erik about all this, now was the time. He thanked Emma and told her he had to go find Erik and ran inside. Azazel was now lurking in the corner by himself, and Erik was nowhere to be found.

“What happened to Erik?” he asked, and Azazel told him that Erik said he wasn’t feeling well and left, said that he looked for Charles to say goodbye, but couldn’t find him.

He must have gone home, Charles thought. Unless he went to another bar, but that didn’t seem like Erik. Charles believed that misery loved company, but Erik liked to do his sulking in private.

Charles went to tell Moira that he had to leave, asked her to let everyone know that he was sorry he couldn’t stay, paid his tab, left the pub, and headed home.

By the time he reached the entrance to his building, Charles was starting to lose his nerve, but he pushed the button for the elevator and went up anyway. Even if he did chicken out, he had to at least talk to Erik and apologize for avoiding him all day. And for what he said about Emma. That was really uncalled for.

Erik was sitting on the couch watching TV, which was strange. Erik wasn’t usually a TV watcher. He liked to read trashy novels and poke around on the computer, and there were certain shows that he liked, but he wasn’t one to just turn on the TV and flip through the channels, which was what he was doing when Charles walked in.

“I’m sorry I missed you,” Charles said, “I was outside talking to Emma. We were almost around the corner, you probably didn’t see us.”

“Be careful with her,” Erik said. “She's a telepath. You know what they're like.”

“Well, that's not fair.”

Erik stood from the couch and turned to face Charles. He had his arms crossed over his chest and he was scowling. “Listen, when we made this agreement, you said that we didn’t have to put on any big show, and I think we should go back to that. I don’t think that this, that whatever we’ve been doing is working out.” He looked hurt. “I had been thinking that this might be going somewhere, but I think I was wrong.”

“No,” Charles said, and it startled Erik. “I’m sorry, no. Please don’t think that. That’s why I came back here. I came to apologize to you.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“Yes, yes there is.” He stepped around the couch to stand in front of Erik, and when he opened his mouth to say more, he didn’t know where to start. He was just going to say that he was sorry for the way he’d behaved that day, but he looked into Erik’s eyes and he saw it all slipping away: their friendship, their connection, it was all dissolving right in front of him and it was all his fault. Erik had reached the end of his patience with Charles, and if he didn’t do something, it would all be over. This was the end.

“I completely fucked this up, didn’t I?” he said with surprise in his voice. "I fucked this up. I fucked it up from day one. And I was so convinced that I had blown my chances with you that I've just been fucking it up worse and worse every day since, haven't I?"

Erik didn't say anything.

“I’m so sorry, Erik, I didn’t mean to make you feel like I was leading you on. I swear I didn’t know I was doing it.” He took a deep breath. “Emma talked to me tonight, about…” he waved at his head. “She said that the dampeners made a wall between us, and we haven't been seeing each other clearly, and I think she's right.” Charles huffed a laugh. “It’s embarrassing, really. I’ve been working so hard to build a barrier between us and all this time I should have been tearing it down.”

Charles shook his head and looked up at Erik, tried to figure out what he was thinking, but he couldn’t.

“That connection between us when we met: it was because I forgot to take the dampeners that day. I saw you so clearly that I knew without a doubt that I wanted to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you. You said once that I dumped you as soon as the caffeine hit my system, but that’s not true. It was when that barrier went up again, when I woke up and took my pills and I questioned everything I’d done without them. Never for one second did my feelings for you change. I just didn’t trust myself.” He huffed a sad laugh. “And I ruined everything. Now look at us.”

When Erik still didn’t say anything, Charles took one last chance and stepped forward and tentatively touched Erik's arm. "Would you let me in? Please. Just. Just once. I just need to see you that way again.” Erik gave him a questioning look, and Charles gestured again to his head. Erik looked uncertain, but nodded that he agreed.

Charles pushed through the dampeners’ barrier again, and this time didn’t even bother trying to go in unnoticed. Erik lost his footing for a second from the shock of the contact, and Charles grabbed him and held him upright, pulled him close with his free hand while the other held two fingers to his temple. He tried to wade in slowly, but seeing Erik’s mind again was heavenly and Charles couldn’t resist trying to take it all in at once. He’d spent so much time dreaming of this, wishing for it and longing for it, wondering if everything he’d loved so much would still be there. It was.

Erik must have felt it, too. He had to. Charles pushed everything he was feeling at Erik, and he was so overwhelmed with the sensation of their mental contact that he didn’t even feel Erik kiss him, just felt the flush of pleasure and passion and delight that colored Erik’s mind, and it was so wonderful that he thought to himself, _That’s what Emma must have meant when she said I’ve been fucking with my hands tied behind my back_. He must have shared that thought because Erik laughed into his mouth and wrapped his arms around his back, let his hand wander down to Charles’ rear end and thigh and gripped there so firmly that he almost lifted Charles off the ground.

They crashed down into the couch and the shock of it rocked Charles’ connection loose. He tried to hold onto it, but it flickered in and out like a radio on a mountain road. In the flashes of Erik’s mind he saw delight and relief, but also suspicion. “What? What’s wrong?”

“How much have you had to drink tonight?” Erik asked him, and their fluttering connection reminded Charles that the last time (the only other time) had been when they were blackout drunk, and a dark corner of Erik’s mind was wondering if Charles was only interested in him when he was hammered.

Charles beamed at Erik and straddled his lap. “I had half a beer. Not even. You seemed so upset that I was too depressed about it to drink.” He leaned forward and kissed Erik again and tried to share the memory of leaving the barely-touched beer at the bar when he followed Emma outside.

Erik’s hands went to Charles’ torso and he said, “Too depressed to drink? Who ever heard of such a thing?”

Charles started unbuttoning Erik’s shirt and went for his chest. “I like to drink when I’m happy, like I was when I met you.”

Erik smiled and kissed Charles again, more passionately still, and the pleasure Charles felt rolling off of him was as much from the kiss itself as it was from just knowing he was allowed to kiss Charles again, _finally, finally_. And as Charles rode the growing stiffness in Erik’s lap, he saw all the other times that Erik had wanted him: wanted to put his arm around him in the movie theater, wanted to take him from behind when he was bent over the sink washing his Mickey Mouse mug, wanted to take his hand when they walked down the street, wanted to jump in and join him every single time Charles turned on the shower, wanted to bite at his bottom lip when he saw Charles chewing it in frustration, wanted every night to retire to Charles’ bedroom instead of his own.

They went there then, and the change in location was as much to take advantage of Charles’ absurd king size bed as it was to avoid being caught with their pants down when Raven eventually made it home. It was a clumsy move, though, the both of them unwilling to take their hands and mouths off each other and Charles so desperately trying to hang on to their connection that they ended up crashing into the coffee table and into the doorframe, and then Erik stubbed his toe on Charles’ platform bed foundation.

“Ah, fuck!” he hissed, and sat at the edge of the mattress. Charles pushed Erik back further onto the bed and took his injured foot in hand, massaging it and kissing it and apologizing, then when Erik’s jeans were out of the way, moved up Erik’s long, muscular leg, trailing along the inside of it with his mouth.

He wasn’t at his most skillful that night – he was too distracted trying to maintain their telepathic connection through the still-strong dampeners – but Erik didn’t seem to mind. Not by the way his mind lit up when Charles took him in his mouth, or when Charles’ fingers wandered around to Erik’s ass to press inside. Nor did Charles enjoy it any less when Erik turned him over onto his back and rode him, their cocks slick and rubbing together, or when Erik took them both in hand, or when Charles felt Erik come so clearly and overwhelmingly that he came, too. Then still Charles didn’t want to lose that connection, wanted to feel every happy moment of Erik’s afterglow until he just couldn’t maintain it for one more second, and he resigned himself to the dampeners once again.

They lay there in bed for a few minutes, not speaking or even touching, except for the way that Erik’s leg was still draped over Charles’. Charles glanced over at Erik and saw that he was looking around the room. He’d never been in here before, Charles realized. Erik’s eyes moved from the photo of Charles and Raven on the dresser to the bookshelf to the overflowing closet. Erik must have felt him looking at him, because he turned his eyes next to Charles. They smiled at each other, and after a moment, started to laugh.

After they cleaned themselves up, Erik, gentleman that he was, went to the refrigerator and brought back a couple of cartons of the leftover Chinese food and a pair of forks. They sat up against the headboard, side by side, and picked at the remaining lo mein and Kung Pao chicken.

Charles was almost through with the chicken when the guilt kicked in. “There’s something else,” he said to Erik, who slurped a lo mein noodle into his mouth and eyed him. “Something else I haven’t told you.”

“What is it?”

“I didn’t tell you the whole reason why I broke up with you that morning.” That caught Erik’s attention, but Charles couldn’t even look at him. He fingered the hem of his green sheets as he said, “Like I told you, I hadn’t taken the dampeners, and I was drunk and I didn’t really have total control, I guess. And I heard you in your mind when you saw that sign for the chapel. I heard you when you were thinking about asking me, and I guess I pushed you into asking. I wanted you to ask me, so I went in and made up your mind to do it. I made you marry me.”

Erik stared at him for a moment before he broke into a grin. “What? No you didn’t!”

“Yes, I did.”

“No, you didn’t.” Erik was almost laughing at him. “You said you heard me thinking about it. Did you make me start thinking about it?”

“Well, no.”

“Did you make me fall in love with you?”

Charles blushed. “No.”

“Does marrying someone on an impulse sound like something you would do or like something I would do?”

“Well, obviously it is something I would do because I did do it.”

Erik was terribly amused, which annoyed Charles. “You broke up with me because you thought you forced me into it? Well, what about all the other stupid things I’ve done in my life? Where were you to take the blame then?” Charles rolled his eyes and scowled, and Erik put down the lo mein, put his arm around Charles and kissed him and said, “I promise you, I’m as much to blame for this mess as you are.”

Charles relaxed a little. “You’re really not upset with me?”

Erik removed the Chinese food from the bed and proved to Charles that really, he promised, he was not upset with him. Not even a little bit.

 

*

 

Charles woke up first the next morning like he always did, turned to his left, and found Erik still there. His mouth was open and he was snoring, just a little, but there was a hint of a smile on his face. Charles kissed his bare shoulder and got up to go make some coffee.

Raven was asleep on the couch, but once again she woke up when the coffee started to brew.

“Where did you go last night?” she asked.

“I came back here. With Erik.”

A slow smile bloomed across Raven’s face. “And?”

“And…” Charles didn’t know what to say. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “And we worked it out.”

“Worked it out? You mean worked it out, like,” she made an obscene gesture, “ _worked it out_ worked it out?”

Charles laughed, “Don’t be gross. He’s my husband. Have a little respect.”

Raven gasped. “Oh my gosh, you really did fuck him, didn’t you?”

“Raven!” He pulled some mugs down from the cabinet. “Honestly!”

“Oh, don’t act all prim and proper now. I know what you did last night.”

Erik walked out of the bedroom then – Charles’ bedroom – and Charles hoped desperately that he hadn’t heard any of that.

“Good morning,” Erik said, and kissed side of Charles’ head. “Good morning, Raven.”

“Good morning, stud,” Raven said, which scandalized Charles and made Erik laugh. “So does this mean I can have my room back? After I change the sheets, I mean.”

Erik looked over at Charles for approval before he said, “Yes, I guess you can.”

“Thank god. That couch is the worst.”

Erik poured himself a cup of coffee and then turned back to the both of them. “My mom still has her hopes up that we’ll come over for brunch this morning. Are you up for it?”

“Yes,” Charles said without hesitation, “Yes, I would love to. Raven, you should come, too.”

Raven looked as though it was the last thing she wanted to do, but when she saw Charles’s silent pleading face, she sighed and said, “Okay, I’ll come.”

“Great,” Erik said, “I’ll call her and let her know.”

When Erik shut himself in the bedroom to call his mom, Raven turned to Charles and said, “Why am I going to your mother-in-law’s house for brunch?”

“Because I want you to meet her, and it will make her very happy.”

Raven rolled her eyes. “Fine, but only because I’m hungry.”

They showered and dressed and were on the subway headed out to Queens by 10:30. Charles spent the ride interrogating Raven on what happened between her and Hank at the party, which she insisted was nothing, but Charles didn’t believe her. At Erik’s insistence he hadn’t taken the dampeners that morning, but they were still fading, so Charles honestly wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth or not. He just sat across from her on the train, arms and legs crossed, and hoped his glare would be enough to get her to confess. Erik just sat back and listened, and drew circles with his thumb on Charles’ knee.

They arrived at their stop and emerged from the subway into a neighborhood Charles had never visited before. Erik took Charles’ hand and together the three of them walked the quiet, residential streets, past small homes and cars that had seen better days. When they arrived at a blue house with an old Toyota parked out front, Erik squeezed Charles hand, then pushed the front door open and stepped inside.

“Ma? We’re here!” he called out, and Edie emerged with a big grin on her face.

“You made it!” she said, then bypassed Erik and went straight for Charles to wrap him into a hug and kiss his cheek. When she let go, Charles introduced her to Raven, who also received a warm welcome. “I am so happy to meet you!” she said, as if anyone could have thought otherwise. “Come in! Come in!”

She led them into the kitchen.

“I didn’t know what you all liked,” she said, “so I got everything.” There was a mountain of bagels covering the table. “I got every kind of bagel they had, so there’s poppy, sesame, everything, plain, onion, salt, pumpernickel, whole wheat, cinnamon raisin, probably some others I can’t remember, plus we have plain cream cheese and vegetable cream cheese, butter, lox, onions, tomatoes, and capers, and I can also make eggs if you would prefer that, plus I wasn’t sure if you liked coffee or tea, Charles, so I have both. Which do you like? Coffee or tea?”

Charles was overwhelmed. “I like both. Either. Whatever you’re having is fine.”

“Ma, how many bagels did you think we were going to eat?” Erik said, looking at the feast before them. “There’s four of us. You must have two dozen bagels here.”

“Well, you can take them home with you when you leave,” she said, “Take them to the park and feed the birds for all I care. I just wanted to make sure I had anything your husband might want. I only met him a couple of days ago, you know. If you’d introduced him to me sooner I might know his bagel preferences by now, but I don’t.”

Erik made a face at Charles, who patted him on the back and smiled.

“I will have an everything bagel with cream cheese. And lox, since you have it,” Charles said, “And a cup of tea.”

“Perfect,” said Edie. She turned to Raven and put her arm around her shoulders. “And what would you like, sweetie?”

“Oh. Poppy with butter, I guess. And coffee.”

“I can do that.” She turned to Erik next and said, “You can get your own bagel.”

Charles laughed and Erik pinched him for it, and they sat down for what Charles hoped would be the first of many years of brunches at Edie’s house.


	7. Chapter 7

As usual, it wasn’t the alarm that woke Erik up. It was the way that Charles reached over him to hit the snooze button, then stayed there, draped across Erik’s chest, the same way he had almost every morning for the past five months. Erik groaned a bit, but it wasn’t much of a protest. Erik really didn’t mind being woken up this way. He preferred the weekends, when he could sleep an extra hour or two and sometimes woke up with Charles’ hand down his pants, but this routine was pretty good, too. He stroked Charles’ back, and Charles mumbled something into his shoulder about getting up, but he stayed right there on top of Erik for another ten minutes before finally getting out of bed and heading towards the shower.

Charles must have known that Erik was watching, because he stripped as he walked out of their bedroom and into the bathroom. When Charles dropped his pants, Erik noticed that those weekly soccer games over the summer were still showing, and Charles sent back, _Thank you, darling_. The soccer games were surprisingly fun. Erik would stand on the sidelines and watch as often as he could. Sometimes Emma would come along, and she’d bring a beach chair and sunscreen and shout obscene things at the players, then they would all go get a drink afterwards. Other times, when one of Charles’ teammates wouldn’t show, Erik would be recruited into playing. He wasn’t very good. He couldn’t control the ball and he didn’t really understand soccer beyond the basic idea that the ball had to get into the net and he wasn’t allowed to touch it with his hands. Erik was a baseball fan, and of course whenever he’d turn on the Yankee game, Charles would make it through all of five minutes before he started getting frustrated. (“A ‘squeeze play’? Now you’re just making up rules to confuse me.”)

Erik heard the shower start and toyed with the idea of jumping in there with Charles, but resisted. Instead he rolled out of bed and padded over to his dresser to pull out some running clothes. Their bedroom really wasn’t big enough for the both of them, but Erik became tired of keeping his things in Raven’s room and feeling like he was only a guest in Charles’, so when he saw one of their neighbors getting rid of a dresser, he bought it off of them for a few dollars and squeezed it into the corner of the room. Someday they would come up with a better arrangement, but this would work for now.

Erik was tying his shoelaces when Charles returned to the bedroom with a wet head and a towel tied around his waist. Charles looked delighted when he saw that Erik was preparing for a run, and his happiness leaked telepathically. He apologized for sending the thought – that he was glad Erik was going running because it meant that he’d walk him to work. Erik assured him that he really didn’t mind knowing that Charles was happy to see him, but still Charles apologized for projecting when he didn’t mean to.

Charles had acclimated to going without the dampeners much faster than Erik had expected, but there were still times when his control over his abilities waxed and waned. When Erik told Charles how surprised he was at how quickly he’d gotten used to the telepathy, Charles had scoffed and protested, “It’s not like I’ve never used it before, just not all day every day.” Besides, it was such an innate part of him that saying he’d gotten used to the telepathy was a bit like saying he’d gotten used to digesting food.

Of course it helped that he had Erik there to practice with: Erik, who rarely had anything negative to think about Charles, who was more than willing to let Charles poke around in his head all he wanted, and who basked in the attention, even when Charles thought he was being too invasive. He also had Emma, who turned out to be a fantastic mentor. For someone so opinionated, she was surprisingly non-judgmental and was always willing to listen and offer advice and support. More than anything, Charles needed Emma to reassure him that he didn’t need to have perfect control all the time.

Sometimes Charles would make a customer the wrong drink because she was thinking so loudly about that double white chocolate mocha even though she’d actually ordered a small skim latte. Sometimes Charles would get so caught up thinking about what a terrible idea it was for Moira to sleep with the redheaded bartender that Moira would say “Hey!” and smack him for accidentally sending her the thought. There were some days when Charles would become so depressed from knowing that another semester had started without him that he’d bring down the mood of everyone in a four-block radius without even realizing it.

Sometimes Erik felt like he and Charles were sharing one mind for how closely they were intertwined, and other times Erik would sit there and think, _Charles? Are you listening to me right now? Hello? Earth to Charles?_ And get no response. Then there were all the times that Charles caught Erik thinking about him, about his legs, about his nose, about how happy he was to have him, about how brilliant and stubborn and kind he thought he was, and Charles would become so happy that it would radiate throughout their apartment. Or the time when Charles caught Erik thinking about them having children, wondering how long they should wait before they started looking into it, and considering names for boys and girls, and Charles pounced on him and dragged him into the bedroom for two hours of some of the best sex either of them had ever had.

It wasn’t so much, then, that Charles was embarrassed that Erik knew how happy he was that he was going to walk him to work. He was just embarrassed and frustrated with not ever being completely sure what he was sending out and what he wasn’t. No matter how quickly his control was improving, it was never fast enough.

Charles dressed and towel dried his hair, and by the time he was getting his shoes on, Erik was already standing at the door tapping his foot and saying, “You’re going to be late.”

“All right, all right, I’m coming,” Charles said.

Autumn had begun. The leaves on the trees were just starting to change and there was a slight chill in the air as they walked hand in hand. Erik turned to Charles and said, “You should have worn a jacket. Aren’t you cold?”

“You sound like your mother. ‘Erik, I’m cold. Go put on a sweater.’”

“I sound like my mother? How dare you.”

They arrived at the café at precisely 5:30am, and Charles said, “I don't have anything planned for this afternoon if you want me to come down and meet you for lunch.”

“Not today. I’m sorry; I have a lot to catch up on. I'll see you tonight.”

Erik kissed him goodbye – that part was never a ruse – and ran off down the street. He knew Charles would watch him until he turned the corner.

 

*

 

When Erik got home from work that night, Charles was pacing around the apartment talking on his phone. “No! There is no way Felix is going to be eliminated,” he was saying, “The judges love him and this was his best showing all season. It's going to be Helena. She was just awful last night. She's got to go.”

Reality TV, apparently. Nothing Erik had any interest in. He went to the bedroom to take his suit off and change into something more comfortable, and when he emerged again, Charles had hung up.

“That was your mother,” he said, “She wanted to know what time we were going to pick her up for her doctor's appointment tomorrow. I told her we'd be there at noon. Is that okay?”

“That's fine,” Erik said, and plucked the phone out of Charles' hand. He poked through the call history. “43 minutes and 17 seconds. She hardly ever calls me anymore, but you were on the phone with her for 43 minutes and 17 seconds.”

“There are very important things happening on television. And she told me to tell you that she said hello and she loves you.”

Erik rolled his eyes. “Yes, noon is fine. Are you sure you even want me to come? I'm sure she'd rather just have you there with her.”

Charles took Erik's pouting face in his hands and kissed him and said, “You're probably right, but you have a driver's license and I don't, so you have to come.”

“Great. Glad to know what I'm good for.”

Charles wrapped his arms around Erik's waist and assured him that he was good for a great many things, and Erik groaned and begged Charles to please come up with some better lines because his were getting tiresome fast.

The routine with Edie and the doctor's visits was also becoming tiresome. She had worked up to taking long walks around the neighborhood and gardening (and having long, animated conversations with Charles, apparently), but she still insisted that she was too weak to take the subway over such a long distance by herself, so she always had Erik drive her to her doctor's appointments. When he was living in the same house as her, it was no problem, but since Erik had moved in with Charles, driving her to her appointment meant taking three trains to get to her house, then driving back into Manhattan for the doctor, then back to Queens, then three trains back to their apartment. It made for an absurdly long and expensive trip, but Edie still insisted that she could not and would not meet him there.

To drive Edie to her 1:30pm doctor’s appointment just on the other side of town, Erik and Charles had to leave their apartment by 11am to get to her house around noon, then pile into the car by 12:30 to drive back into Manhattan with enough time to allow for tolls and traffic and parking, and after all that, end up about a mile from where they started. It drove Erik crazy.

“But this way we get to spend more time together,” she said as they sat in traffic approaching the Midtown Tunnel.

She was happily playing with the radio and looking out the window; meanwhile Erik was grinding his teeth and gripping the steering wheel so tight he thought it might break. He was seriously considering using his power to just lift the car out of traffic and float it over the East River when he caught sight of Charles in the rearview mirror, sought their connection, and thought, _Please just keep her entertained for me before I snap._

Charles nodded and sent a slight wave of affection and calm towards him before he leaned forward between the seats and asked, “Edie, have you seen the new Woody Allen movie yet? What did you think of it?”

Erik sighed and sent, _Thank you,_ as his mother turned her attention away from the radio dial and towards Woody Allen.

She was still talking to Charles about Woody Allen (“And can you believe he’s still married to Soon-Yi?”) when they finally parked the car and headed into the cancer center.

Edie’s doctor was on the third floor. She went and checked in with reception, and then the three of them took their seats in the waiting room. This marked the third time Charles had come along for one of these appointments. Erik could no longer count how many times this made for him overall. He’d been there often enough over the past two or three years that the office had renewed their subscription to Popular Mechanics at his request.

He’d only just opened the latest issue when a nurse stepped into the room and called Edie’s name. When she stood and Charles and Erik didn’t, the nurse said to her, “There isn’t going to be an examination. You’re just here to talk. Your family can come with you if you want.”

They all shared a surprised and nervous glance before Erik and Charles stood and followed Edie down the hall to her doctor’s personal office. There were only two chairs in front of the large mahogany desk, so Edie and Erik sat while Charles paced and looked through the bookshelves. Probably scanning over the authors for people he knew, Erik thought.

The doctor, an Indian woman in her mid-40s who Edie absolutely adored, walked in a couple of minutes later. Erik never enjoyed her big warm welcomes. He thought they seemed forced and they made him suspicious, but his mother ate it up, of course, and so did Charles. She smiled bright and easy and shook everyone’s hands and commented on the weather, then sat down in her oversized leather desk chair like she was getting ready to read them all a bedtime story.

When she pulled out a manila folder Erik asked, “Are those the results?”

She smiled and said in her delicate accent, “I see you’re as patient as ever. Marriage has not softened you yet, has it now?”

Erik rolled his eyes and felt Charles pat him on the shoulder.

“He’s just anxious to hear what you have to say,” Charles told her.

The folder, as it turned out, contained charts. Charts, graphs, numbers, spreadsheets, x-rays: more information than Erik could comfortably follow. He’d come to understand a fair bit about cancer and the biology behind it, but it was all blurring together as the doctor went through the documents page by page. It was Charles who was asking all the pertinent questions, leaving Erik and Edie to exchange glances of “Do you know what he’s talking about?” “Does he know what he’s talking about?”

Finally Erik had to interrupt, “Would you please just tell us what’s going on? Just tell us the prognosis, okay?”

“The prognosis is that your mother is currently cancer-free and has a less than 5% chance of recurrence at this point in time.”

He felt his mother take his hand and kiss his knuckles, but he was still staring down the doctor. “Are you sure? You’ve told us she was okay before.”

“That was very different, Mr. Lehnsherr. As you can see here—”

When she started to pull out another chart, Erik waved it away. “No. Please. No more graphs.”

She sighed and put the documents aside. “There is no way to ever be certain, but as I said, from where we are now, the chances of recurrence very slim. A year ago I told you she had a 40% chance of surviving the next five years, and now I would put her five-year survival rate at about 90%.” She turned to Edie again, who was brushing tears from her eyes. “The treatments have been remarkably successful. You know, of course, that I have no way of knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow, and you still have a ways to go before you feel like your old self again, but for now, I think you’re going to be okay.”

 

*

 

Edie and Charles were ebullient, but Erik didn't say much on their drive back to Queens, and he was silent on the subway back into Manhattan. Charles held his hand and tried to nudge him into smiling, and Erik allowed it, but when they finally got back home that night, Erik went straight into the bathroom and stepped into the shower. He stood under the warm water and pressed his forehead against the clean white tile and tried to calm his mind. He took deep breaths, took in the steam and the clean scent of shampoo. He should be happy. Shouldn't he be happy?

He didn't hear Charles knocking on the bathroom door and calling his name, asking him if he was all right.

Charles was sitting at his desk waiting when Erik emerged twenty minutes later. “Better?” he asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, fine.” He went into the bedroom to get dressed again, and Charles followed him in. “I just don’t want her to get her hopes up,” he said as he put on his pants. “I mean, they’ve told us this before. They’ve told us she was okay and then a few months later they found something else.”

“But it is different this time,” Charles said gently, “She’s really in the best possible position right now. The odds of recurrence are very small.”

Erik sat on the edge of the bed. “But it can still happen.”

When Charles sat down beside him, Erik felt him reach into his mind as clearly as he felt Charles’ hand on his thigh. His mental touch still wasn’t as subtle as it could be. “Can I tell you what I think?” Charles asked, and continued without waiting for an answer. “I think that you were so used to the idea of losing her that you don’t know how to react now that you’re not.”

Erik scoffed. “Some mind reader you are. I could have told you that.”

Charles bumped his shoulder against his. “Okay, well how about this. I think you’re feeling guilty because lately you’ve been spending more time thinking about me than about her. You’re worried that by marrying me you’re leaving her alone for the rest of her life.” That surprised Erik, and he stiffened. Charles took his hand. “I’m sorry, I guess I looked too far,” he said, and Erik brushed it off.

“No. No, you’re not wrong.”

“Can I ask what happened to your dad and your sister? You’ve never told me.”

Erik sighed. He supposed he should have told Charles the story a long time ago. “My sister, Ruth,” he began, “was three years older than me. She was a mutant, too.”

“What was her mutation?”

“She was a teleporter.”

“Like Azazel?”

Erik smiled a bit. “No, not like Azazel. Or maybe eventually she could have learned, but she manifested late and she couldn’t control it. It would just happen, just, poof, she’s in the living room. Poof, she’s in the back yard. And she couldn’t bring anything with her.  Azazel can bring me and all my luggage along with him, but she couldn’t even manage to bring her clothes with her. So she would be minding her own business and suddenly she’d be on the other side of the room, naked. She couldn’t go very far, so it wasn’t usually dangerous, but it was embarrassing.”

“How old was she?”

“She was fourteen. Can you imagine a fourteen year old girl dealing with that? I mean, I was a little brat and made fun of her. I thought it was hilarious. But looking back, it must have been terrible. One time she was taking a test at school and in the middle of it she ended up in the front of the classroom naked. Isn’t that everyone’s nightmare? She literally would end up naked in front of the entire class.”

“That must have been horrible for her.”

“I just remember every day after school she’d be crying into Mom’s lap. Crying that she was a freak, what was wrong with her, why does she have to go to school, why won’t it stop.”

Charles must have seen the memory reflected in Erik’s mind, because when he said, “That’s horrible. Poor girl,” Erik saw him flinch, like he felt it himself.

“So finally my dad started taking her into the city to the mutant clinic to see what they could do for her.”

Charles’ eyes widened. “The Myers-Meehan Clinic.”

He nodded. There was no need to continue the story, because Charles knew it as well as any other mutant in the country. The Myers-Meehan Clinic, the largest mutant clinic in America, was bombed by human supremacists on November 12, 1990. The entire building was destroyed, killing 184 people and injuring 630 more.

“My sister was killed in the explosion, and my dad died two days later in the hospital.”

“Oh, Erik,” Charles said, and though it had been many years since Erik had needed someone to comfort him over his dad and his sister, he let Charles hold him and kiss his face and murmur, “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Charles,” he almost laughed, “It was a long time ago now.”

He took Erik’s hand again and said, “And all this time you’ve been expecting something terrible to happen to your mother, too.”

Erik shrugged. “I guess so.”

“But it’s not, Erik. She’s going to be fine.” He waited for Erik to nod before he added, “And you haven’t abandoned her because you care about me. She’s wanted more family and now she has me, and she has Raven, and eventually she’ll have grandchildren. This is what she wanted. She’s very happy, and you should be, too.”

Erik clenched his fists. “I think about losing her, too, and it makes me feel… untethered.”

“Well, you’re tethered.” Charles smiled and kissed Erik’s temple. “And she’s going to be around to annoy you and nag you for many years to come.”

 

*

 

It took about a week for Erik to shake the lingering sense of doom, but they had decided to wait on officially celebrating until Raven was in town anyway. By the time Raven arrived two weekends later, the feeling of dread had finally lifted, and he was in such high spirits that Raven hardly recognized him from the first time they met. “Who are you and why are you smiling so much?” she asked.

Edie wanted to dress up and Charles wanted to give her a reason to, so he got them tickets to a show at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater and made reservations at a four-star restaurant for dinner afterwards. He even arranged to have a limo pick her up at her house and drive her into the city.

Erik rarely got to see Charles dressed up, so this was a treat for him, too. He was used to seeing Charles grungy and milk-stained after a shift at the café. Charles in a well-cut suit with a good haircut and gleam in his eye? They barely made it out of the apartment.

After much whining from Raven to please hurry up already, they made it downstairs twenty minutes later than planned and got a cab down to Lincoln Center. The sun was already setting and the fountain was lit up. Behind them, the opera house glowed, and so did Charles.

Erik grabbed him as if to dance and dipped him in front of the fountain.

“Let’s get a picture,” Charles said, and grabbed a tourist to ask if she’d take their picture.

“Isn’t this a little backwards?” Erik asked, “Shouldn’t they be asking us to take their picture?” But he was enjoying himself too much to complain, and Charles was right: they were dressed nice and smiling and happy and the night was beautiful. They should take a picture. It wasn’t like they had any wedding pictures they could frame.

“We’re going to have to get another picture when your mom gets here,” Charles said as he took the camera back. He was asking Raven if she’d get a few of just him and Erik when a man walked up from behind and tapped Charles on the shoulder.

“Xavier. This is a surprise,” the man said.

Charles turned and stiffened with surprise. “Dr. Shaw. What are you doing here?” The name vibrated through Erik: he was probably feeling Charles’ reaction. Charles must have been sending all of his dread and panic directly to Erik because he wasn’t letting any of it show on his face.

“My wife is a fan of the ballet.” He introduced the very severe looking woman on his right as his wife, Julia.

By that point Erik was looming, so there was no way for Charles to avoid saying, “This is my husband, Erik, and over there is my sister, Raven.”

“Nice to meet you,” Shaw said, and shook Erik’s hand. “Erik, you said? You look familiar. Have we met before?”

Erik shook his head. “No, we definitely haven’t.” And until that moment, he’d been hoping they never would.

“What’s your last name?”

Erik looked to Charles for guidance before answering, “Lehnsherr.”

“Erik Lehnsherr. Did you used to work at the Fitness World on 79th street?”

“No.”

“Ah,” Shaw said. “I must be thinking of someone else, then.”

Shaw continued to give Erik a searching look until Charles interrupted and said, “Well, enjoy the ballet.”

“Thank you. Have a good night,” he said, and walked away arm in arm with his wife.

Charles let out a deep breath and turned to Erik. “Well, if I was going to run into him, this was probably the best possible scenario, don’t you think?”

Erik put his hand on Charles’ shoulder and asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean he could have seen me frothing milk and sweating and wearing an apron.” A smile creeped across his face. “I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I think I look pretty good tonight.”

Erik leaned in to kiss him. “You definitely do.”

Edie’s limo arrived a few minutes later, and she stepped out of the back seat looking like she was ready to present at the Oscars.

“Ma, you know we’re not actually going to the opera tonight,” Erik said as he kissed her hello, and she smacked him on the arm and said she didn’t care. Charles stepped in, of course, and told her she looked radiant, and Erik rolled his eyes because of course Charles would use a word like radiant.

The show would be starting in a few minutes, but still Edie pulled out her camera and insisted they all take some pictures before they went in. Edie, Charles, Erik, and Raven in front of the fountain: the photo would sit on her mantle for years to come.


	8. Chapter 8

On the second Thursday in October, Hank visited Charles at the cafe. It was a nice surprise, and Charles was so excited to see him that he almost burned himself on the espresso machine. Charles had been spending so much time with Erik that he didn’t see Hank very often anymore, especially since Hank no longer needed Charles’ assistance with his thesis. Fortunately, Hank arrived during a mid-morning lull, so Charles was able to give him his full attention. He made Hank an iced latte on the house (until Moira silently objected, then it was on Charles), and then came around to the front of the counter to greet him properly.

“What are you doing here?”

“I have good news,” Hank said. “Trivers died yesterday.”

“Dr. Trivers died? You’re joking!”

Hank chuckled and shook his head. “No, it’s true. He actually died. I didn’t think it was possible, but yeah, he’s dead. Worm food.”

Moira gaped at them. “Tell me you’re not seriously celebrating someone’s death.”

Charles and Hank both corrected themselves and mumbled, “No, of course not. Very sad.”

“Trivers was the oldest faculty member in the department,” Charles explained, “He was kind of...”

When Charles trailed off, Hank jumped in with “A miserable old bastard.”

“Hank!” Moira said.

“Sorry. I mean, may he rest in peace, or whatever, but it’s true, and now that he’s gone…”

“Who’s going to teach his classes?” Charles asked.

“Exactly. That’s why I came over here to tell you. They’re already short staffed without you – I don’t know who else they could get. He was teaching two 300-level courses, so they probably wouldn’t just throw a grad student in to cover or anything like that.”

Charles saw stars. “Do you think I have a shot?” he asked.

Hank shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”

“But,” he swallowed a lump in his throat, “they haven’t contacted me. This is the first I’ve heard of it. If they needed me to cover his classes, wouldn’t Shaw have called me by now?”

“No, no, he just died last night. I only heard about it this morning. I came straight over here after my morning class. You have to jump in there before anyone else does.” He paused and slurped at his drink. “Also I wanted a latte.”

Charles suddenly didn’t know what to do with his hands. He put them on his hips, then on his head, then wiped at his face. His heart was pounding. “What should I do? Should I call Shaw now? Should I wait? Maybe I should wait.”

“No, don’t wait,” Hank said. “I mean, if you want to come back to Columbia.” He hesitated and leaned forward a bit. “Are you sure you want to, though? The department hasn’t exactly been welcoming to you. Even before the whole incident with Shaw. Haven’t they been kind of horrible to you?”

“Actually, I ran into Shaw at Lincoln Center just a couple of weeks ago and he was perfectly friendly to me.”

Hank and Moira were both looking at him like he was nuts, and they were both radiating frustration. Charles took a deep breath and blocked out their thoughts of _why on earth would you want to go back to that place?_

“Because I haven’t done anything wrong,” he snapped. “Because it’s the best university in the city and I spent my entire career working towards Columbia. It was always my goal. And I’m not going to let some asshole take it away from me just because he can.”

They didn’t look convinced.

Neither did Erik when Charles told him what he’d done later that night over dinner.

“You called Shaw?” he asked with a look of concern. “You called him and asked for this dead guy’s classes?”

Charles put his fork down in frustration. “You make it sound like I’m begging.”

“It does sound like you’re begging.”

“I’m not begging. I just called and asked them to consider me for the position. I have an interview with them on Monday.”

“An interview? Charles, why are you doing this to yourself?”

Charles closed his eyes and gritted his teeth and thanked his good luck that they’d gone to the pub for dinner, where there were enough other minds around to drown out the disappointment in Erik’s.

“They’re bringing you in to interview for a job you already had,” Erik said. “That you should still have. They’re leading you on.”

“It’s a formality.”

“It’s been three semesters. If they wanted to –” He stopped when he saw the hurt on Charles’ face. “I’m just saying that there are other schools. I don’t know why you want to go back to Columbia. Why? Because it’s an Ivy? There are other Ivies.”

“But they’re not in New York. I don’t want to leave New York. This is where I live. This is where you live. Besides, even if I wanted to go somewhere else, other schools aren’t going to hire me if I’m still on the outs with Columbia. If I could go back for just one more semester, it would prove that I have nothing to hide.”

Erik took a bite out of his burger and frowned at Charles while he chewed. He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest.

“And what if they don’t hire you for this?” Erik asked. “Then what?”

Charles had no answer.

Erik leaned forward and said gently, “After this, I think it might be time to start thinking about other options.”

Charles felt his face twist into a grimace. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. He refused to get upset.

“But hey,” Erik said, “You could be right. Maybe they’ll bring you back. You’re the most qualified person for the job and they’re idiots if they don’t hire you. It’s their loss.”

Charles sighed and thanked him. He knew they were empty words, things everyone said to people applying for jobs, but he still appreciated the support.

The weekend flew by. Charles spent most of it pacing around the apartment rehearsing the interview in his head and deciding on what to wear.

On Sunday he and Erik attended Trivers’ funeral out in Suffolk County. He knew he didn’t have to go, but he felt that it would make a good impression and show them that he still thought of himself as a member of the department. He mingled with the other faculty members and introduced them all to Erik and tried to be as genial and relaxed and confident as he could be – while still pretending to mourn the loss of that crotchety old windbag Trivers.

“I think that went well,” Charles said as they drove the Southern State Parkway back to Queens. They’d borrowed Erik’s mother’s car for the trip and they promised they’d stay for dinner after they returned it.

Erik glared at him from the driver’s seat. His mind was saying, _That was the rottenest bunch of self-important assholes I’ve ever met,_ but out loud he said, “Yeah. Good funeral.”

The interview wasn’t until 2pm, but still Charles took the morning off from the café. That didn’t mean he slept any later, though. He spent the night tossing and turning, and several times accidentally gave Erik nightmares. The third time it happened, Erik woke with a start, and after looking around and realizing where he was, he said, “I dreamed you had to go to Antarctica for your interview, but Antarctica was just down by the Bowery, and then when you got there they were all cats.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just nervous. If you want I can go sleep in Raven’s room.”

“No, it’s okay,” he said, and turned over to face Charles. He rested his hand on Charles’ chest. “Just stop worrying so much. It will be fine.”

“I know.”

Erik took Charles’ face in his hand, stroked his cheekbone with his thumb. “And even if you don’t go back to Columbia, it will still be fine. I won’t think any less of you if you teach at CUNY.”

Charles smiled. “As long as it’s not high school, right?”

Erik kissed Charles’ forehead and rolled back over to the other side of the bed. “Yes. Anything but high school. Good motto,” he mumbled, and fell right back to sleep.

Charles had planned to dress in his most professor-y outfit for the interview. He thought it might help his cause to dress the part, so he pulled out the old tweed jacket with elbow patches. He was going for Dead Poets Society, but Erik told him he looked like he was wearing his grandfather’s hand-me-downs. He ended up just letting Erik dress him, which was probably what he should have done in the first place anyway.

He arrived at exactly 2pm for the interview and not a minute sooner. He was too nervous to hang around chatting with anyone he might run into. He just wanted it over with.

The department’s administrative assistant led him down the hall to one of the conference rooms. “How have you been, Charles?” she asked. “I’ve missed you around here.”

Charles smiled. “I’ve been good, actually. Very good. But I’m excited to come back.”

“Well, fingers crossed, right?” As he sat down at the head of the table, she said, “I’ll let Shaw know you’re here. I think Clemens and Reed might be in the meeting with you, too. And maybe Blumenschine.”

“Oh,” Charles said. He was only expecting to meet with Shaw, but she was gone before he could ask her any more about it.

It was a bit chilly in the conference room. Good thing Erik made him wear a jacket, he thought.

They filed into the room a few minutes later: Shaw, Clemens, Reed, and Blumenschine. They were smiling, at least, and shook his hand and said it was good to see him again.

“I hope you don’t mind I invited some of the other senior faculty for this,” Shaw said.

“Not at all,” he lied.

They breezed through small talk and pleasantries. There was no need to go over Charles’ resume or anything like that. They asked him what he’d been up to since leaving Columbia, and Charles told them he’d been taking some time off, reading a lot, staying on top of what was happening in the field. When he mentioned that he’d been working in his friend’s coffee shop, too, they all laughed, and though Charles had half a mind to be insulted, it seemed to be a good ice breaker, so he let it go.

Finally Shaw asked, “So, tell us why we should bring you back to Columbia,” and Charles took a deep breath and launched into the speech he had been practicing all weekend – all year, really – about how no one they could hire would be more devoted to the school, about how popular his classes had been and what a good relationship he had with the student body, about the awards he’d already won despite his young age and the books and articles he’d had published. He wanted to bring up his research, but that didn’t seem wise. Instead he stuck to his merits as a teacher and his good reputation in the field.

When he was done, Shaw’s lips curled into something approaching a smile. “I see you’re off your meds,” he said, and they all chucked.

“What?”

He tapped his forehead. “I can hear you in here.”

“Oh.” He looked to the other faculty members and they all nodded agreement. He tried not to blush. “Then I hope you heard how sincere I am and how excited I am at the prospect of returning to Columbia.”

“I did, but that’s not the point. We’ve had issues of integrity in the past regarding your telepathy, and I don’t know if it would be wise to bring you back when you are not controlling it.”

Charles swallowed his rage and said, “Just because I am not medicating it does not mean I’m not controlling it.”

He considered saying more, but decided to keep his mouth shut. Shaw was staring at him with a glint in his eye, and Charles shut his mind as tightly as he possibly could.

“I wonder,” Shaw said, “if your husband, Mr. Lehnsherr, is the reason behind your sudden jump off the wagon.”

Charles froze. “I don’t see what my personal life has to do with my position at Columbia.”

“Well, we’ve all met him. You brought him to the funeral yesterday, and I assume you’d be bringing him to other events as well. We have to take into consideration how it might look to have a mutant supremacist hanging around the genetics department.”

Charles’ blood turned to ice. “Excuse me?”

Shaw leaned forward onto his elbows. “Columbia University is one of the most prestigious institutions in America. We can’t have the university’s reputation tarnished because we have members of the Brotherhood of Mutants attending events with the genetics department.” He pretended to chuckle. “I mean, why not just hire someone from Al Qaeda to teach Middle Eastern Studies?”

Charles sputtered. “Erik is not a member of the Brotherhood. And even if he was, he is not the one asking to be reinstated. I am.”

“Erik Lehnsherr? Yes, he certainly is. We have his name listed in the minutes of a meeting from as early as 1997, and we also have this.” He reached into a folder and pulled out a mug shot of Erik looking impossibly young and angry – Charles might not have even recognized that it was him in the photo if he wasn’t holding up a placard with his name on it. Again the date was 1997, just one year before the Brotherhood attempted to bomb the Golden Gate Bridge. “This mug shot is from a Brotherhood riot outside the Myers-Meehan Memorial. So there’s no use in trying to convince us otherwise. Unless you’re going to try to use your telepathy to erase the memory,” he pretended to be frightened, “That’s why I asked my colleagues to sit in on this meeting with me. You couldn’t wipe all of our memories at once.”

Charles absolutely could, but he was too angry to try it.

“And considering your track record with using your powers to circumvent the University’s rules and regulations, no one is surprised at your choice of a spouse.”

“I have never once used my powers inappropriately. The allegations against me were never proven true.”

“Well, you’re hardly helping your case by turning up a year and a half later unmedicated and married to a mutant terrorist. I’m sorry, Charles, but I believe it’s time that we officially end your relationship to Columbia University.”

 

*

 

It was only 2:30 when Charles left Columbia. That wasn’t an interview, he thought. That was an ambush.

 

*

 

When he got home he noticed that he had three missed calls from Erik and four texts: _“Good luck.” “How did it go?” “What happened?” “Please call me back.”_  

He ignored them all.

 

*

 

Erik must have left work early, because he walked in the door at 5:05. Charles was standing in the middle of the living room with his arms crossed over his chest. He knew his eyes were probably red from crying, but he was too angry to care.

Erik took one look at him and his shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. I guess it didn’t go so well.”

“No, it didn’t. Are you a member of the Brotherhood of Mutants?”

Erik was in the middle of taking off his coat, and he stopped and turned. “What? No.”

“No?” He sneered. “Really.”

He shrugged. “I attended a couple of meetings in college. So what?”

“Because Shaw told me that Columbia couldn’t have a faculty member who was married to a mutant supremacist and a terrorist.”

Erik turned white as a ghost. “What?” He grasped for something, anything to say. “I am not a terrorist!”

“They had your name down in their ranks. They had your mug shot from when you were arrested at a pro-mutant riot.”

“That was not a riot. That was a protest.”

“Don’t you think this might be the kind of thing you should have told me?”

“It was fifteen years ago! I was eighteen! I was in college! I thought I was doing the right thing for mutants.”

“Oh, yeah? And then what?”

“And then they tried to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge, Charles! Fuck, do you think I’m some kind of psychopath? I went to all of three meetings before I figured out they were a bunch of wack-jobs and I never went back.”

“Well, great. Good for you. You had your little adventure with the Brotherhood and now my career is over.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“Oh, you think I’m overreacting?” he screamed. “I work in mutations research! Who is going to hire me if I have ties to the biggest mutant terrorist organization in the country?”

“Yes, you’re overreacting! Who do you think brought me to my first Brotherhood meeting? One of my professors!”

“Yes, well, that was before they were a known terrorist group.”

“Exactly! If anyone ever asks, you can just explain—”

“I shouldn’t have to explain anything! Don’t you think I have enough to explain about why I’m no longer at Columbia? Don’t you think I’m already in deep enough shit as it is? And now, besides being accused of using my telepathy to steal research from another faculty member, I’m also accused of sleeping with a terrorist. Do you know what Shaw said? He said it would be like hiring a member of Al Qaeda to teach Middle Eastern Studies.”

“Oh, Shaw said that, did he? You’re going to listen to him? That guy has had it in for you since day one! Where did he even find that stuff about me, anyway? No wonder he made such a big deal of asking my name when we met him that night – he’s probably been trying to dig shit up on me ever since!”

“He’s still right.”

“No, he’s not!” He snapped his fingers like he just had an idea. “You know what else? One of my math professors was a Black Panther!”

“Oh, so what? That is so not the same thing.”

“One of my history professors was a registered socialist!”

“Still not the same thing, Erik!”

“Yes, it is! You think you’re the first professor with some controversial politics in his past? It’s not even in your past - it’s in my past! You’re going give up because of something Shaw said to you? He’s trying to ruin you.”

“Well he’s doing a fucking good job, isn’t he? No thanks to you.” Charles paused, stood there seething, and in a burst of rage he grabbed a bowl on the table and threw it against the wall. It smashed and crumbled to the ground. He put his face in his hands. “I think you should leave.”

“What?”

“Leave, Erik. Get out. I can’t look at you right now.”

“Charles.”

“Get out of my apartment.”

Erik put his coat back on and left.

Charles was shaking.

 

*

 

Erik came back the next day after work. He came home at his usual time and timidly walked back into the bedroom to find Charles. He was wearing the same clothes from the day before. When Erik pushed the bedroom door open, Charles was packing.

“Where are you going?” Erik asked.

Charles couldn’t bear to look up and face him. “I’m going to California. I’m going to visit Raven.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know. I just need to get out of the city for a few days.”

“I was hoping we could talk.”

Charles huffed. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Yes, I think there is.”

“Well, not now,” he snapped. He could feel Erik glaring at him and heard the desperate words he was keeping to himself. “I need to figure out what I’m going to do.”

Erik said slowly, cautiously, “Don’t you think that might be something we could figure out together?”

“No.”

Erik nodded and walked out of the bedroom. When the car arrived to take Charles to the airport, Erik was nowhere to be found.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to thank everyone for reading and leaving kudos and commenting on this fic. I never expected such a wonderful response, and I really appreciate the support. Thank you!

“Have you tried calling him?” Edie asked. They were sitting on the old couch watching some horrible dancing competition show. Just another form of punishment, Erik thought.

“No, not yet,” he said. “It’s only been a day.”

“The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be.”

Erik glared at her. “You don’t get it, Ma. I told you, the only reason he married me in the first place is because he wanted to get his job back, and now it turns out that I’m the reason that he never will.”

“Erik,” she muted the TV and took his hand in hers. “That may be the reason why you rushed into this, but that’s not why you’re married. He loves you very much. And I’m sure he knows that what happened at that school was not your fault, because it wasn’t.”

“You didn’t hear him.”

“He was upset and he took it out on you. It’s not right, but it happens. How many times have you yelled at me over the years because of something that happened at work or with a boyfriend?”

Erik let go of her hand, and she patted his shoulder and put the sound back on. He sat there and watched with her for a few more minutes, but when the judges started debating the merits of the contestant’s short, glittery skirt, Erik couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m going to bed,” he said, and kissed his mother goodnight.

“Call him,” she said.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

He left her to her show and climbed the stairs up to his room. It was somewhat embarrassing to be sleeping in his childhood bedroom again. He’d only moved out of the house and into Charles’ apartment seven months earlier, but the leap from then to now was dizzying, and the thought of sleeping in their bed while Charles was angry with him was too much to bear.

At least he didn’t still have dinosaur sheets on the bed.

It was only 9:00, but still Erik changed into a t-shirt and pajama pants and climbed in under the covers. He turned out the light and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes. The mantra was the same as it had been for the past three days: _It was just a fight. He was upset. It was just a fight. He was upset._   He looked around for a distraction and grabbed his phone off of the night stand. He flipped through the photos on there – mostly Charles, of course. Then he played a game for a while. Just Tetris: something mindless to entertain him for a few minutes. When he finally lost a round, he closed the game and opened his contacts list. His finger hovered over the link to dial Charles. It still said Hubby.

He put the phone back on the night stand and went to sleep.

At 2:43am, the phone rang.

Just once, then it stopped. Erik yawned and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. The light on his phone was blinking. The missed call was from Charles.

Erik sat up against the headboard and called him back.

“Hello?” Charles answered.

“Charles?”

He paused. “I’m sorry for calling so late. I wasn’t thinking. I forgot about the time difference.”

“It’s okay. I’m awake.”

“I’ve been doing that a lot lately, haven’t I? Not thinking, I mean.”

Erik sighed into the phone, and he could hear Charles gulp.

“I was calling to apologize,” Charles said. “For the things I said. For the way I behaved. God, Erik,” he made a desperate little sound, so close to a sob. “Erik, I’m so sorry.”

“You know I wasn’t keeping that stuff from you on purpose,” he grumbled.

“I know. Of course I know. And you didn’t do anything wrong. The opposite, actually: you were right about everything. I should have listened to you in the first place. I never should have called Columbia. I never should have gone back there. I should have known it was over.”

There was a rustling sound from Charles’ end of the line. Erik thought that he should probably say something, and part of him wanted to, but he was still on edge. Part of him wanted to grovel and sob and apologize to Charles for anything he could possibly think of: whatever it would take for Charles to come home. But he didn’t. He clenched his jaw and listened and waited to hear what Charles was going to say.

“God, I feel so stupid,” Charles said. “My career is over. It’s been over for a year and a half and I’ve been hanging around making cappuccinos and convincing myself that they would take me back. They were never going to take me back. Why didn’t I see that? Everyone else saw it. They must have been laughing at me all that time.”

“No one was laughing at you. And your career is not over.”

“I was humiliated. They humiliated me. That was the whole point of meeting with me – just to crush me, because they didn’t crush me hard enough the first time.”

“Charles.”

“You should have seen the look on Shaw’s face. It was glee. He was gleeful to do it. I wanted to strangle him. I wanted to leap across the table and just throttle him. And I took it out on you instead. You didn’t deserve any of that. I’m so. I’m so ashamed. I’m so sorry.”

“I thought maybe it was over between us.”

“What? No, please, Erik.” He sounded so broken.

“Well, that was the whole point, wasn’t it? You wanted the money so you could buy your way back into Columbia?”

“Oh, no. No, Erik, you don’t really still think that, do you?”

Erik shrugged, which was a pathetic, useless gesture in person let alone over the phone, but he had nothing more than that to say.

“I love you so much. I don’t care what happens to that money,” Charles said, and he might have said more, but Erik had to put the phone down for a second and collect himself. He knew he was wrong to think that Charles was still in it for the inheritance, but he had to hear it. He needed to hear it then.

He picked the phone back up and asked, “Were you going to tell me that you were going to California?”

“Yes, of course I was.” Charles paused. “I would have. I wasn’t thinking straight. I spent the whole day trying to think of what to say to you, but I was still so upset that every time I imagined it, it ended with me yelling again, and I didn’t want to do that. I was afraid if I opened my mouth I would make it all worse.” Again he paused, and Erik wished he could see his face. “I wish you would have stayed while I was packing yesterday.”

“Well, you didn’t want to talk to me.”

“I know. But I should have anyway.”

“Charles,” Erik started, but still he didn’t know what to say. He rubbed at his eyes and wished they were having this conversation in person and at a reasonable hour. He wanted Charles there with him. He felt so small and alone in that twin sized bed, and Charles was so far away.

“Erik, please,” Charles sobbed at the other end of the line. “I understand that you’re angry with me for the way I treated you, but please tell me that you can forgive me. I’m so sorry.”

“I know you are. But next time when you lose your temper, I hope you won’t fly to the other end of the country.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

Erik smiled a little. “Between the two of us I thought I was the one with the temper.”

Charles let out a sad little chuckle. “Just because I’m a pacifist doesn’t mean I don’t get angry.”

“Maybe you should get angry more often instead of bottling it up for a year and a half.”

“Yeah, maybe so. Raven says I’m mourning Columbia like a death. That I was in denial for so long, and then anger. Now I suppose this is me bargaining. She’s taking Psych 101, can you tell?”

Erik sat up a little straighter against the headboard. “Charles, you know I would never do anything to hurt your career. No one thinks you are smarter or, or better or more perfect for any job or anything than I do. You know that, right? I’ll support you no matter what. I promise. You want to go teach in Alaska? Good. Let’s go. Whatever you want to do.”

“Do you- Do you mean that? Would you really relocate?”

“Sure. If it’s important to you.”

“But you love your job. And what about your mom?”

“I don’t love my job. I like my job. I love you.” On the other end of the line, Erik heard a slight little sniffle. “And obviously we’d have to drag Mom to Alaska with us. I don’t think she’d allow it otherwise.”

Charles laughed.

“When are you coming home?” Erik asked.

“Oh sure, say I can move to Alaska if I want and then tell me to come home to New York.”

Erik smiled. “Come home, Charles.”

“In a few days. I need the break. I need to get away and clear my head. I feel a bit better already.  And I’ve never actually been out here to visit Raven before. She’s promised to take me sightseeing. The Raven version of sightseeing, of course, which means we’ll go to her job at Disney and visit her campus and probably her favorite bar. I won’t actually see any sights, I’m sure.”

“You should go to the beach, at least.”

“I did tell her that I want her to take me to Malibu.”

“Good. Just promise me you won’t get a tan. I don’t think I would recognize you.”

Charles laughed again. “Does this mean – am I forgiven?”

Erik sighed. “I guess so. But please don’t do that again.”

“I won’t. Never. I promise. I couldn’t live with myself. I couldn’t bear to see you look at me like that again.”

“Same.”

“I love you, you know.”

“I know. I love you, too.” Erik looked over at the clock. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? I’m going to try to get some sleep.”

“Okay. Good night.”

“Night.”

Erik turned off his phone and sank back down into the bed, and it didn’t feel quite so lonely anymore.

 

*

 

Erik returned to the apartment after work the next day. It was a relief. He didn't know how much he missed it during the three nights at his mom's until he pushed open the door and realized he was home again. He always believed that home is where your stuff is, and that was partly true. He was glad to be in the same place as all of his clothes and books, but he was also glad to be in the same place as Charles' scientific journals and his five half-eaten boxes of cereal and his giant Mickey Mouse mug.

He wished Charles was there, but it wasn't so bad having the apartment to himself. He found some leftover Chinese food in the fridge and proceeded to eat it cold straight out of the cartons while standing up. Between Charles and his mother, he hadn't been allowed to eat dinner standing up in at least two years. He didn't even have to listen to the TV blaring away in the background. He could stand and eat in silence. It was heavenly.

He was just about to take his pants off – in the middle of the kitchen, so he could stand and eat cold Chinese food straight out of the carton in silence in his underwear – when someone knocked on the door. He groaned. He was wrecked after the past few days, and he had no interest in talking to anyone. And since no one rang the buzzer from the street, it must have been a neighbor. Some rich old lady wanting to make a complaint about the trash chute or something, he thought. They knocked again, and Erik put down the food and grudgingly answered the door.

The man standing on the other side looked vaguely familiar, but Erik couldn't place him.

“Hi,” the man said. “I would have rang up, but someone held the door for me. Erik, right? I don't know if you remember me, but we met on Sunday at the funeral for Dr. Trivers. My name is John Reed. I'm one of the professors in Charles' department at Columbia. Is he here? I wanted to speak to him.”

Erik felt his face crunch into a scowl. “He had to go out of town for a few days.”

“Oh. I've been trying to reach him, but I think the email address I have for him is old and I don't have his cell phone number, just his old office number. Obviously that's not any help. But he sent me and my wife a Christmas card last year, so I had his address from the envelope. I was hoping I might be able to catch him at home. Do you think you could deliver a message for me?”

“I doubt he wants to hear anything you have to say.”

“I know,” Reed said, and looked down at his feet. “And I know it doesn't amount to anything, but I was in that meeting with him on Monday and I wanted to let him know that I thought it was awful, and I feel terrible about the whole thing.”

Erik stepped into the hallway, leaving the door cracked open behind him. He saw then that there was a woman hovering at the end of the hall. Odd, he thought, but he ignored her.

“You were in there for that?” Erik asked, and Professor Reed nodded.

“There were three of us in there, plus Shaw. He made it seem like he wanted us there to represent the department, but it occurred to me later that in addition to me he invited the two biggest gossips in the building. I've already had a call from a friend at NYU and a friend at City College, both asking me if what they heard about Charles was true.”

Erik put his face in his hands and sighed. “Why?” he asked. “This guy Shaw – why is he doing this? I don't understand what this vendetta is. What did Charles do to him? It's like he's out to ruin him and I don't understand it.”

“I don't know.” Reed fiddled with the hem of his sleeve. “Sometimes I wonder if it's my fault. I always liked Charles and he never liked me. Maybe he felt threatened.” He sighed and threw his hands in the air. “Who knows?”

The woman was still standing at the end of the hall. She had her arms crossed over her chest now and was making no effort to pretend she wasn't listening. Erik glared at her, then turned his attention back to Reed.

“So what is Charles supposed to do now? You know none of that stuff about him stealing research or whatever – you know none of that is true. And the stuff about me? What do I have to do with anything? Is this guy Shaw really going to take the fact that I went to a protest or two in college and turn that into a reason to destroy Charles' career? That is horseshit. That is absolutely absurd and it’s not fair.”

“I wanted to give him this,” Reed said, and pulled a disc out of his pocket. “It's a letter of recommendation from me and one from another colleague. Tell him to let me know where he's applying and I'll even rewrite it to suit the position. I'll keep my ears to the ground and if I hear of any openings, I'll let him know.”

Erik took the disc. “Thank you. That's very kind of you. Here, I'll give you his email address.” Erik popped back into the apartment to grab a piece of paper and a pen. He returned to the hallway a moment later and scribbled down the address. The woman was still watching. He handed the slip of paper to Reed and thanked him again.

“Tell him that I'm really sorry about all this, and let him know that he still has a couple of friends at Columbia if he ever needs anything.”

“I will. I appreciate it.”

“And it was nice meeting you at the funeral. It's a shame that this all turned out the way it did.” He whispered, “It would have been nice to have a few more mutants hanging around the genetics department.” Reed blinked and his eyes turned reptilian: yellow with black slits for the pupils. He winked at Erik, turned, and headed down the stairs.

Erik smiled to himself and shook his head. He’d have to ask Charles what that was all about when he called later. He turned to go back into the apartment and noticed that the woman was still standing in the hallway. She’d taken a few steps forward and was looking at him expectantly.

“Can I help you?” he asked impatiently.

She stepped forward again and said, “I was looking for Charles, but I gather he’s not here.” She was very petite and dressed with precision. She took her sunglasses off her face and sat them on top of her head, putting a dent in her perfect blond hair. She looked a bit like what he imagined Emma would look like in another 20 years.

“He’s out of town,” Erik said.

“You must be Erik.”

“Yeah, and who are you?”

“I’m his mother.”

Erik must have given away how startled he was, because she stepped into Erik’s space like a predator. He saw the resemblance then, once she’d gotten closer: they had the same nose and the same eyes. Hers were more of a gray-blue than Charles’ sapphire, but no less dramatic. “I had some business in the building and I thought I’d come up and say hello,” she said.

Erik gaped at her for a second before he realized his mouth was hanging open. “He’s in LA visiting Raven.” He was nervous. He couldn’t believe he was nervous. She was awfully intimidating for someone so small.

“And he left you here? Don’t tell me you’re already on the outs – you still have until the end of February before you can collect the inheritance. When’s your anniversary again? February 25?”

“February 24.”

“It’s too bad you were in such a rush. You could have waited a few days and done it on the Leap Year.” She said it in a teasing tone. “But then, I guess when you marry someone you met five hours earlier over a roulette wheel at Caesar’s Palace you’re not really concerned about what day it is.”

Erik’s eyes went wide. “How could you possibly know that?”

She smiled, and it reminded Erik of a crocodile. Or maybe that was just because of her handbag. “I was very sorry that you and Charles couldn’t come to my annual Fourth of July party at the estate.”

“We were in Cape Cod for the week.”

“Really? I thought Charles was just hiding you from me.” She gave Erik a once over that made him stand up a little straighter and smooth down his hair. “What were you talking about with that man just now? Who is Shaw?”

“Shaw is the head of the genetics department at Columbia, Charles’ old boss. He’s the one who framed him for plagiarism a couple years ago, and then on Monday he dug up some dirt on me and used that to finally fire him.”

“Shame,” she said, “I told Charles he wasn’t suited to academia.” She frowned at Erik. “You mentioned something about you at a protest. Is that the dirt they dug up?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Mostly.”

“You weren’t even arrested at the protest. You were arrested at a bar later that afternoon.” She ignored the way Erik was gaping at her and said, “Well, give Charles my love. I suppose I’ll see the pair of you at Christmas?” She smirked. “You’ll still be married by then, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“I don’t doubt it.” She pressed the call button for the elevator, then gave him another searching look and said, “You know, I could delay the transaction and you wouldn't get my mother's money for five years instead of one.”

Erik accepted the challenge. “Make it ten,” he said.

She smiled and wagged a finger at him. “I like you. Maybe next year we’ll do Aspen for Christmas. You do ski, don’t you?”

“No, but I wouldn’t mind getting drunk in the mountains.”

She laughed. “Very good.” And with that, she got on the elevator and left.

 

*

 

Erik went back into the apartment as soon as he heard the elevator moving and called Charles. It rang three times before he answered, and all that time Erik tapped his foot, impatient with the thought that Charles was off somewhere doing things without him and was too busy to answer. He was probably surfing, Erik thought miserably, or rollerblading or hanging out with celebrities he’d never heard of or some other absurd thing people do in California. Erik had never felt even a wisp of jealousy when Charles was in New York, but something about the thought of Charles in Los Angeles without him made him seethe.

“Your mother's pretty scary,” Erik said when Charles answered.

“What?”

“Where are you? What are you doing?”

“I'm sitting on Raven's couch wondering how long that moldy loaf of bread would have sat under here if I hadn't found it and thrown it away. What about my mother?”

So he wasn't off doing beach-yoga or drinking smoothies, at least.

“Your mother stopped by to see you. She ambushed me in the hallway. She knew where we met and she knew about the inheritance and she even knew about the mug shot from that protest. Also I think she might be responsible for that tsunami a few years ago.”

“Yes, that sounds like her. She doesn’t seem to think it’s worth speaking to someone unless she can have the upper hand. She doesn’t even call to say hello unless it’s some sort of power play. Well, don't worry. That's probably it until Christmas. Then at least you'll get turkey with your ambush.”

“She wasn't the only visitor we had today.” He told Charles about Professor Reed: what he said about Shaw and about the letters of recommendation. At first he thought maybe he shouldn't tell Charles that rumors were beginning to spread about him, but decided to break it to him as gently as he could. After everything that had happened that week, Erik didn't think it would be wise to keep any new secrets.

Charles took it better than Erik would have guessed, but for a worse reason. “I know,” Charles said, “A woman I know at Hunter emailed me to say that she didn't think it was so terrible that I was a recruiter for the Brotherhood.” He gave a sad little chuckle. “I think she has a crush on me.”

“Should I be jealous?”

“Actually, that reminds me...” Charles said. “Hang on.”

“That doesn't sound good.”

A minute later, his phone beeped to let him know he had a message from Charles. He opened it up to find a photo of Charles being kissed on the cheek by a Marilyn Monroe impersonator.

“Raven took me to Grauman's Chinese Theater,” Charles said.

Yes, Erik was definitely jealous.

 

*

 

They spoke again at lunch the next day and the following night, and again on Friday at lunchtime and after dinner. Sometimes it was as if nothing had happened, like Charles was just calling from the other side of town and would be home any minute. Other times Charles would call and it would sound like he’d been crying, and he would sound so far away and sad that Erik would have done almost anything to make him happy again.

“Do you want me to kill Shaw?” Erik asked on Friday night. “I could drop something heavy on him from across the street. Some scaffolding, maybe?”

“Or a piano?” Charles laughed, and Erik was relieved to hear it.

“I think I could manage a piano. Or I could give him an aneurysm. They’d never prove that was me.”

“What? How would you do that?”

“With the iron in his blood. Make it all rush to his brain.”

“I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Well, I’ve never tried it, but this seems as good an opportunity as any.”

“Can you make blood rush anywhere else?” Charles attempted to say it suggestively, but it only made Erik laugh.

“Since when do I need to use anything supernatural to make you hard? And no, before you ask, no, I can’t try it from 3,000 miles away.”

“Damn. Something to look forward to then.”

“When are you coming home?” Erik asked again.

Again, Charles said, “Soon.”

 “Well, are you going to buy a plane ticket?”

“I will.”

Erik was sitting on their bed. He looked over to Charles’ side. “When?”

“In a few days. I’m just,” he sighed. “I’m not ready to face everyone yet. I can’t stand the thought of slinking back to New York with my tail between my legs.”

“You’re not. You’re coming home to me. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. Let me take the weekend. Give me until Monday.”

“You’ll come home on Monday or you’ll buy a ticket on Monday?”

There was a silence, and then Charles said, “I will buy a ticket on Monday.”

 

*

 

On Monday, Charles said he hadn’t had a chance to go online, but he did send Erik a picture of him at the beach with the caption “Proof that I haven’t gotten a tan.”

 

*

 

By Tuesday it had been a full week since he’d last seen Charles in person, and that had only been their brief, curt encounter while Charles was packing. Erik was becoming palpably lonely, jealous, and horny. It was not a good look on him.

When the phone rang that night, he was on the computer looking at flights for Charles and debating whether or not to just buy him a ticket whether he liked it or not.

Erik answered on the first ring. “Have you bought a ticket yet? Because if you haven’t I’m buying you one right now.”

“I’m sorry, no, I haven’t. But actually I was wondering if you could mail me my suit.”

“Mail it to you?”

“Yes. Well, overnight it. It doesn't matter much if you fold it up or anything; I figured I would get it dry cleaned anyway.”

“Any particular reason you want me to crumple one of your suits into a ball and FedEx it to you over night?” As he said it he realized he was nervous. He closed his laptop and stood.

Charles hesitated. “I have an interview on Friday. Sort of. Not really. I tagged along with Raven to school today, and while she was in class I popped in on a classmate of mine from undergrad. He's in the genetics department at UCLA now, and I just thought I would go say hi. They aren't advertising any positions available or anything, so really I was just going to say hello, but anyway he got me a meeting with the head of the department there. I'm not expecting anything. Like I said, they don't actually have any openings, but he said that they've been running on something of a skeleton crew for the past couple of semesters, so who knows.”

Erik's heart was in his throat and he sounded somewhat frantic when he said, “You want to stay out there? Permanently?”

“No.” Again Charles hesitated. “I don't know. I'm just trying to keep an open mind. I never imagined myself in California, but I actually quite like it out here, and I don't think I'm in any position to turn down an interview. I think it will be good for me, even if nothing comes of it. I probably shouldn't wait too long to get back on the horse.”

“Right.”

“It might be a good idea, Erik.” He lowered his voice. “I don't think the New York rumor mill reaches all the way out here.”

“Right. Well, good luck, I guess. I’ll send it out first thing tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Charles said. “And don’t worry. Like I said, this is probably nothing.”

When they hung up, Erik walked over to the window and pressed his forehead against the glass. It was raining out, and all the fall colors of Central Park looked deeper and more vibrant. The red leaves were turned a deep ruby in the rain. No one wanted to walk so there were more cabs than usual on Central Park West, their yellow contrasting dramatically against the black road surface, and the rhythm of the rain made the traffic musical. He sighed, stepped away from the window, and went over to Charles' closet to pick out an interview outfit.

 

*

 

On the morning before his interview at UCLA, Charles realized with slight horror that he was no longer jet-lagged. He was also somewhat surprised that his back no longer ached from sleeping on Raven's sagging couch. He was absolutely positive that this was not the couch that their mother had originally put in this apartment (or rather that their mother's decorator had originally put there), and from the looks of the place, he was beginning to suspect that Raven had taken to rebelling via dumpster-diving. He'd never thought of Raven as being passive aggressive, but he couldn't think of any other way to describe the way she'd thrown out all of the designer furniture and replaced it with trash of her own choosing.

He stretched and sat up and scratched at his chin. He hadn’t shaved since he left New York – he only brought a carry-on and, as a result, left his razor at home – and in the past nine days he’d grown a beard. He kind of liked it, but still he made a mental note to ask Raven to take him to the drug store to buy shaving supplies. The beard would have to go before his interview.

Raven was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room typing frantically at her laptop. She had a paper due in two hours. “How do you spell ‘politicization’?” she asked.

He put on his glasses and, through a yawn, told her, “D-I-C-T-I-O-N-A-R-Y.”

She glared at him. “Oh my god you’re such a dork I can’t even handle it.”

“Don’t you have spell check?” He stood up and headed for the kitchen, but on his way he heard her mutter, “I thought it would be easier to just ask you. I won’t make that mistake again.”

He smiled to himself a little as he made a cup of tea. He was really starting to drive her crazy: sweet revenge for all the time she spent in his apartment over the years. Still, nine days. He couldn’t believe he’d been in California for nine days. Nine days of anxiety, nine days of meltdowns, nine days of depression. The sunshine was helping, and he had to admit he felt much better than he did when he first arrived, but still. Nine days. It overwhelmed him as he dropped a tea bag into his mug. He watched the water cloud to a rich red-brown as his thoughts seeped through with panic, and not for the first time. What the hell was he doing out here? What had he done? He’d been lingering in a fantasy world where as long as he was in California he wouldn’t have to face reality. He was a coward. He wanted to go home.

Just a few more days, he told himself again and again. He’d go to the interview tomorrow, and once that was over, he’d get on a plane and go home. Be brave. See his husband. Beg forgiveness. Shower in a clean bathroom.

 The doorbell rang and snapped Charles back to the present. He closed his eyes, tried to clear his mind, took a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth.

“Charles, it's for you,” Raven called out.

Charles put down his mug and stepped into the living room.

There was Erik, standing in the doorway with his duffel bag, his computer case, and a garment bag, just like the day he moved in.

“I brought your suit,” Erik said, and he was looking at Charles like he wasn't sure how he might react. It was even the same expression as the one he wore on the day he moved in: hopeful, but slightly terrified.

But back in March, Charles couldn't run across the living room and take Erik in his arms like Charles did then. Erik dropped everything to the ground and held Charles tight. He buried his face in Charles’ neck and breathed him in and kissed his bare shoulder where he’d pushed back his shirt collar and murmured into his skin, “Nine days.”

“I’m so sorry,” Charles said, and said again. “I’m so sorry.”

Erik dug his nose into Charles’ hair. “I know.”

“I've missed you so much,” Charles said, and finally pulled away. “I’m really glad you came.” He wiped a tear from his cheek. “You didn't have to come.”

“Of course I had to come. You don't have a driver's license. How were you going to go job hunting in L.A. without a driver?”

“That's what I said,” Raven hollered from the next room. She must have escaped when he wasn’t looking. Charles could hear her wondering if the coast was clear or if they were going to start doing it against the front door. He decided to let her wait it out.

“You rented a car?” Charles asked.

Erik nodded. “I also got us a hotel room. I’m not sharing that disgusting couch with you,” he said, then called out, “No offense, Raven.”

“None taken,” she called back.

Charles stepped forward and put his hand on Erik’s waist. He was real. He was there. “Are you really going to drive me to the interview? You’re really okay with this? We can talk about it. Nothing has happened – there’s plenty of time to think this through.”

“And since when do either of us think things through?” he smiled. “If you’re serious about this then I’m serious about this. You’re not going to lose out on any job because of me. I’ll start sending anonymous letters to the dean about how great you are if that’s what it takes.”

“I’m not so great,” Charles said. “I haven’t been so great to you recently.”

Erik shrugged. “You’re not the only one with a temper. I’m sure there will be times when I’m not so great to you. Just promise me that in the future when I do something awful you’ll remember how forgiving I was.”

Charles laughed. “I promise.”

Erik was looking at him with so much affection that Charles had to look away. He stared down at his bare feet. _I don't deserve this,_ he was thinking, _How could he possibly forgive me?_

Erik reached out and tickled his fingers along Charles' beard. “Because if I had waited a year and a half for my dream job and lost it by being humiliated in front of my colleagues for loving you, I think I may have taken down the Empire State Building. You only yelled at me and threw a bowl.” Charles laughed through welling tears and put his hand over Erik's. “I've missed you and I love you and all I want is for this whole thing to be in the past already. So you're going to have to stop beating yourself up about it, okay?”

Charles nodded, and Erik brought his hand under Charles’ chin, tilted it up, and kissed him sweetly. Charles whimpered with relief, with longing, and surged into Erik, wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him close. Erik's fingers trailed down along his back to the base of his spine, massaged that point there where it met his tail bone, and just as Charles felt Erik's tongue thrust into his mouth, Erik's fingers began to wander under the waistband of his pajama pants. Then it was Erik that whimpered and pulled away.

“Let's get out of here,” he said, looking a little flushed. “I got us an early check-in at the hotel.”

“I'll get my things,” Charles said, and kissed him one more time before he went to pack up his suitcase.

It took Charles all of twenty minutes to get his things together and let Raven know they were leaving, and then they were out the door. Erik led them around the back of the apartment complex to the parking lot, and under a shady tree sat a red Mustang convertible.  When Charles realized that was the car they were walking towards, he turned to Erik and smiled. “You’re joking.”

Erik grinned at him: that big, sharp, sloppy grin that made Charles melt. “When in Rome,” he shrugged.

They stuffed Charles’ bags into the back seat and then got into the car. As soon as the doors were shut, Erik pulled out a pair of aviator sunglasses. Charles just smiled to himself and shook his head, but Erik saw it.

“What?” Erik smiled and buckled his seatbelt.

“Nothing. You’re cute is all.”

“I’m cute?” Erik asked, leaning into Charles.

“Yes,” Charles said. Erik’s hand reached towards him, tucked into his hair and pulled him closer. Charles managed to add, “You’re very cute,” before Erik kissed him.

Before Charles knew it, they were both unbuckling their seatbelts and shifting toward the center of the car, trying to maneuver around the center console to be closer. Charles’ hands were groping their way under Erik’s t-shirt and he mumbled, “I’m glad you have the top up,” into Erik’s mouth.

Erik huffed, “You want me to take my top off?” and Charles started to laugh.

“No. I mean yes, but no, I meant the car.”

“What?” Erik asked while nosing and nipping at Charles’ collarbone.

“Nevermind,” he said, and kissed him again. Charles climbed over the center console to straddle Erik's lap: luckily Erik's legs were so long that the seat was already pushed far back from the steering wheel. Still, Erik leaned it back a bit while Charles unbuckled his pants. They were both nearly hard already, and it didn't take much more coaxing before their bodies were screaming for each other. “Oh, fuck, this isn't going to work,” Charles huffed and moved back to the passenger seat to take off his pants. “Is anyone coming?” he asked.

“Just me,” Erik said with a little laugh.

“No, not yet,” Charles said, and yanked off his jeans. He should have just left his pajama pants on, he thought, and climbed back over to Erik's seat. He was just settling back in on Erik's lap when his eyes went wide. “Oh, my god, lube, we need lube, do you have any?”

Erik choked out a laugh. “This is a rental. I don't think there's any lube in the glove compartment.”

Erik licked his fingers and pressed into Charles anyway. Charles groaned. “Wait, wait, I think I have some Vaseline in my bag.” Once again he climbed back over the center console and reached into the back seat for his toiletry bag. Sure enough, he'd packed a small tub of Vaseline.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Erik said, and dug out a big glob of the stuff with his fingers. Charles climbed back onto Erik's lap and kissed him hungrily while Erik buried his fingers in him until he was ready.

“I've missed you so much,” Charles murmured, and finally, finally, sank himself down onto Erik with a happy little whimper. As promised, Erik didn't last much longer: he came with a thrust that knocked Charles into the steering wheel, sounding the car horn. Charles came soon after that, and it left him weak and breathless and draped over Erik's chest.

They stayed that way for a minute or two, and then Charles climbed back over to the passenger seat to put his pants back on.

“Do you think anyone saw that?” he asked as he buttoned his jeans.

“I don't know,” Erik said, and zipped up. “But I think we're going to have to pay for that stain.”

Charles wiped at his brow. “Worth it.”

Erik smiled and started the engine. “Worth it.”

He pulled the car out of the parking lot and headed towards the highway. Charles was watching him the whole time as he drove, and every once in a while Erik would turn and look back. At a red light, Erik reached out to scratch at Charles' thick stubble. He smirked. “Nice beard,” he said, “Are you interviewing to be a park ranger?”

Charles rolled his eyes. “I’m going to shave.” He poked him and teased, “Vain man,” then stopped, horrified at himself, wondering if he was allowed to tease Erik again.

Apparently he was, because Erik laughed and said, “Oh, you’re one to talk. These are your sunglasses, you know. You're the one with a drawer full of designer shades. You have so many you don't even recognize the ones you own.”

Charles smiled. “They’re knockoffs.”

“Really?”

“Moira buys them for me on Canal Street. I asked her once to get me a pair of sunglasses and now every time she goes she comes back with another pair for me.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Erik said, “Just all this time I thought you had a weakness for expensive sunglasses.”

“Does that sound like me?”

Erik shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I thought it did.”

“I guess we still have plenty to learn about each other.”

Erik turned back to him and again tickled his fingers in his beard. “You have a point there. Did Cheech have the beard or was it Chong?”

Charles gave him a light punch in the shoulder. “Very funny.”

 

*

 

Charles’ interview at UCLA was at 2:00, just like his meeting with Shaw was, and he couldn’t decide whether it was a bad omen or not.

“It’s not an omen of anything,” Erik said as they pulled into the campus parking lot. “It just means that they wanted to meet with you after lunch.”

Charles pulled down the visor to check himself in the mirror. His hair looked pretty good, and he didn’t have any cuts from shaving, nor did he have any food in his teeth. “Do you have a mint?” he asked Erik.

Erik handed him a box of Tic Tacs. “You’re going to do fine,” he said. Charles started to fiddle with his tie, but Erik stopped him. “Leave it.”

“Okay.” Charles grabbed his briefcase, which Erik had been thoughtful enough to pack, and opened the car door. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” Erik said, and kissed him.

“Thanks.”

Charles got out of the car and walked the pathway from the parking lot down to the building where the interview was. He would be meeting with the head of the department, Dr. Edward Lewis. Charles had never met him before, but he’d heard of him and he’d read his work. Dr. Lewis’s specialty was psionics, too, just like Charles’. Charles assumed that was why he had agreed to meet with him in the first place.

He was five minutes early and sat down in a small waiting area while reception told Dr. Lewis that Charles had arrived. Charles expected to be kept waiting, but only seconds later he heard, “You must be Charles!”

Charles looked up and saw a big, smiling, white-haired man. “Dr. Lewis?”

“Please, call me Ed.” He shook Charles’ hand vigorously and led him down the hall to his office. The small room was bright with sunshine and filled with as many green plants as books. “So, you made it out to California!” he said happily. “What brings you out this way?”

“For now I’m just here visiting my sister. She’s a student here, actually.”

“Well, good for her. I’m always happy to convert a few more New Yorkers. I grew up in Queens, myself, but I’ve been out here for almost thirty years now.”

“Oh, my husband’s from Queens,” Charles blurted out.

Charles’ heart stopped. He’d only just sat down and he just announced he was gay.

But Dr. Lewis didn’t seem bothered by it. “Oh, yeah? Whereabouts?”

“Kew Gardens.”

“Oh, okay. I went out with a girl from Kew Gardens once. Nice girl. I’m from Forest Hills. I went to high school with Paul Simon.”

“Really? Did you know him?”

“I had a couple of classes with him, but I thought he was a bit of a show off.”

Charles laughed.

Dr. Lewis pulled out some papers. “I’m familiar with your work, Charles. You don’t mind if I call you Charles, do you, Dr. Xavier?”

“No, of course not. Charles is fine. But. Really?”

“I attended a presentation you did a few years ago on the heritability of psionic abilities. It was enlightening.”

“Thank you.” He beamed.

“I have a couple of glowing recommendations here from some of your old colleagues at Columbia. One from Dr. Reed here, Dr. Burks, Dr. Reilly… Terrible about Dr. Shaw, isn’t it?”

Charles’ eyes shot to Dr. Lewis. “What?”

“Haven’t you heard?”

Charles stammered. “No. What? What about Shaw?”

“He was just arrested a couple of days ago. They found some, ah…” he leaned forward and lowered his voice, “inappropriate photographs. On his computer. Boys. Very young. Apparently there may be some abuse charges, too, but that’s just a rumor. Horrible. Really disgusting stuff.”

Charles’ jaw dropped. _Oh my god,_ he thought. _That must be it. That must be why he wanted me gone. Because of my telepathy – he must have thought I would find out._

 _You're probably right,_ spoke a voice in Charles' mind.

Charles looked up, and Dr. Lewis was smirking at him. “Always nice to meet another telepath, isn't it?  And please, call me Ed.”

 

*

 

UCLA offered Charles an adjunct position until they could find him a permanent place, and although he wouldn't begin teaching until the spring semester, he and Erik moved out to California right away. They decided it was time for a fresh start.

They signed a one-year lease on a two-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica. The place wasn't anything special and they only planned to stay there until they were more settled, but it was available right away and they liked the location. Besides, the second bedroom worked well as a home office for Erik. His company allowed him to telecommute until a position opened up in their L.A. office. Erik was shocked that they let him do it and he suspected that Emma may have done some meddling on his behalf, but he didn't really care how it happened as long as he never had to make idle conversation with his coworkers ever again.

They only went back to New York to pack up their things and tie up loose ends and say goodbye. They also had to go back to see Edie and try to convince her to move west along with them. She didn’t need much convincing.

On their fourth day in their new apartment off Montana, they received a package from Charles’ mom. It was a bottle of wine: her idea of a housewarming gift.

There was also an envelope. Inside was a bill for a private investigator: Case #1316 – SHAW. There was also a handwritten note:

     Charles—

     You can reimburse me out of your inheritance.

     Mom

 

*

 

Epilogue

 

*

 

Charles wakes early on his 40th birthday, puts on his glasses, and goes into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. He’s gotten new glasses, at least, since his 30th. These new ones are more fashionable, which Charles considers a necessity now that he’s no longer young enough or cute enough to get away with big ugly ones. Erik disagrees when he says that, but when Charles then adds that he no longer has any hair to compensate for the ugly glasses, then Erik has to give in and agree with him on that point, at least.

The sun is already up and it looks to be another clear day. He wishes it would rain. It hasn’t rained in months. He misses the rain, misses the seasons, misses white Christmases and fall foliage. The California climate has its charms, though. He likes that the kids can go outside and play even in January without having to bundle them up for snow and he doesn’t miss walking to work in sleet and rain.

He would choose sleet and rain over LA traffic, though, that’s for sure. He complains to Erik about it, but Erik doesn’t get it because he doesn’t commute: he works from home and takes care of the kids and he only goes into the office a couple of times a week, usually in the middle of the day, avoiding rush hour altogether. Charles realizes he shouldn’t complain too much. He likes his job and he likes his classes and his research and his fellow faculty. He really couldn’t ask for much more. But still, traffic sucks.

He has already started to cut up a banana when David runs into the kitchen to wish him a happy birthday, which comes out more like “Happy bird day, Daddy,” and Charles picks him up and pushes his brown hair back and kisses his forehead and says, “Thank you, sweetie.”

“Put me down!”

“Okay, okay.” He’s getting so bossy. So Charles lets him down and sets him up at the table with the banana and some cereal while he drinks his coffee.

Lorna comes down next, wearing her school uniform and a clip in her short green hair. It's so thick and tangle-prone that Erik keeps it cut around her chin. He decided when she was about three, at his mother's suggestion, that a bi-monthly argument over a haircut was easier than twice-daily fights over brushing it. She has school today, and so far her reports from first grade seem to show that she’s taking more after Erik than Charles. She doesn’t want to go and she hates the stupid teacher and why does she have to go to stupid school anyway? But she tells Charles “Happy Birthday,” and he hugs her and thanks her and reminds her that Aunt Raven will be picking her up today, and that makes her feel a little better. Lorna likes having something to look forward to.

Erik's voice booms from upstairs: “Lu! Get back up here! What did you forget?”

From both Lorna's and Erik's minds, Charles reads _Make the bed_. From David's mind all he hears is _Mmm, Cheerios, Cheerios..._ He's licking his fingers and kicking his feet.

Lorna rolls her eyes and sighs and stomps back up the stairs.

They'd never intended for Erik to be the primary caregiver. They always said they'd do it together, every last bit. But Erik worked from home, and from the very first day that they brought Lorna home from the hospital, he was the one who spent his days changing diapers and watching Sesame Street between conference calls and project assignments. Then after Erik’s mother died a couple of years earlier, Erik took on more and more time with the kids. David was only six months old at the time, and Charles still doesn’t know how Erik would have gotten through it if he didn’t have their son to care for.

Charles is standing over the kitchen counter making Lorna her breakfast when Erik sneaks up behind him and wraps his arms around his middle. He kisses the side of his head and says, “Happy birthday. How does it feel to be so old?”

“It sucks.”

Erik laughs into Charles' neck and squeezes him a little tighter. “Oh, come on, it's not that bad. At least you’re not as old as me.”

Charles turns around and kisses him and says, “I guess it’s not so bad.”


End file.
